Quiet Weather Wednesday Before Our Next Weather System Approaches. Winter Weather Chances Return.

Good Tuesday Afternoon. It was a beautiful day today across the area. Our active weather pattern continues though. Low pressure will come on shore tonight in the Pacific Northwest and then track Southeast toward The Carolina’s. This system will track very similar to Monday Morning’s weather system but doesn’t look as strong.

First off we will start with Wednesday. There will be times of sun and clouds Wednesday with temperatures starting out around 30°. We will tack on about eight degrees to the high temperatures from Tuesday, getting up to around 50°. No precipitation from those clouds.

Wednesday Night and Thursday will feature increasing clouds. The aforementioned low pressure will be diving through the midwest and into the trough along the east coast. Precipitation will arrive Thursday Afternoon and we expect rain outside of the mountains, at least initially. The mountains will likely start as a winter mix of snow and rain and then transition to snow quickly above 3500ft. Snow will fall heavy at times in the mountains as rain remains light across the foothills. High temperatures Thursday will be chilly with the mountains only getting into the mid 30’s and the mid to upper 40’s across the foothills. This forecast could change if the low tracks a little further south or north. The further north it goes the better chance of light rain everywhere. The further south and the rain/snow line would likely get down to the I-40 corridor. It’s something to watch. Right now will forecast 2-4 inches of snow across the Blue Ridge with areas near the Tennessee Boarder possibly seeing 4-8 inches. Across the foothills though we will forecast one tenth to one quarter inch of rain. Maps coming later this evening.

Thursday Night into Friday as precipitation pulls away the temperatures will crash. Lows will likely be in the middle teens across the mountains and the low 20’s across the foothills. Snow showers will likely continue into Friday afternoon across The Blue Ridge with mostly clear skies across the foothills. Another 1 – 3 inches of snow is possible in the mountains in the highest elevations. No precipitation across the foothills. High temperatures will likely only get into the mid and upper 30’s Friday across the foothills and will likely remain below freezing across our mountain areas.

Saturday will start off cold again with low temperatures around 20° across the foothills and the low to middle teens across the mountains. Under clear skies we only warm up to the low 40’s across the foothills and in the middle 20’s in our mountain areas. Beautiful winter day though.

Our active weather pattern continues and our next system approaches Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. With low temps Saturday Night getting into the 20’s across the foothills and mountains it looks like precipitation could arrive early Sunday and could form in the form of sleet or freezing rain. With warm air advection Sunday though any frozen precipitation should change to liquid rain late morning. This is something we will monitor. Sunday’s rainfall likely will end up totaling somewhere between .25 and .75.

No severe weather is forecast through this period.