Warmer today, even warmer the rest of the week as the 70s return. Rain returns over the weekend.

It's another beautiful, sunny day across the Tennessee Valley. We are much warmer this afternoon with southwest winds helping bump us up into the mid and even upper 60s in a few spots. This is only the start of a big warming trend that will be with us for the next several days.

Clear skies allow us to drop pretty quickly after sunset, but with the milder air mass in place and a light southerly wind ongoing, we are only talking about the upper 40s to near 50 degrees by 8:00 PM. By daybreak, we only drop into the lower 40s with mostly clear to partly cloudy skies. We have a few more clouds that move through with a weak disturbance on Wednesday, but we will stay dry. There will still be plenty of sunshine as well, and afternoon highs climb into the mid if not upper 60s areawide.

The rest of the week and the weekend looks even warmer. Our continued southwest flow and mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies allow us to warm into the lower 70s by Thursday and Friday. As we move into Saturday, a front moves in from the north and stalls before moving back north as a warm front. That will help increase cloud cover and maybe provide a shower or two, but high temperatures still look to remain in the upper 60s if not the lower 70s.

Clouds really increase on Sunday as moisture deepens ahead of an approaching cold front. We may see a few showers as early as the morning and midday hours, but the more widespread rain (with a few rumbles of thunder) looks to hold off until the evening and overnight hours of Sunday and into the predawn of Monday. Some of the rainfall may be locally heavy at times, but we do not expect severe weather to be a problem. That all clears out by daybreak on Monday, with another shot of cooler and drier air behind the front.

High pressure quickly starts shifting east by Tuesday, allowing temperatures to moderate again toward midweek. That may also be our next opportunity for showers and thunderstorms as the next system approaches toward the middle of next week. That looks to be the start of what may be an extended warming trend as the overall pattern across the Northern Hemisphere reconfigures itself toward one that supports warmer temperatures over much of the nation. We may also start to see the storm track get active with chances for storms as we get deeper into that period of December as well.