Wild weather ride expected over the next 7 days

Buckle your seat belts and hang on! There is a lot going on this week in the weather, so lets dive on in!

Today will be pretty tranquil with plenty of sunshine and temperatures slightly below the seasonal averages. Most of us will see high temperatures near 60 to the lower 60s.

An intense storm system will develop along the Gulf coast and will begin spreading moisture into the region overnight. Clouds will steadily increase with a chance of rain by late tonight. Lows will be in the lower to middle 50s around midnight with temperatures rising toward morning. Periods of rain and isolated thunderstorms will accompany a northward moving warm front Wednesday morning into the early afternoon with a tropical air mass arriving behind it. Temperatures will soar into the lower to perhaps middle 70s as the front passes with howling south to southeast winds during the afternoon and evening. By sunset, thunderstorms will likely be firing up across the region or approaching from the west as the powerful storm moves up the southern Appalachian Mountains. Heavy rain is likely with the possibility of nasty thunderstorms. Due to favorable wind profiles above, thunderstorms will have the potential to produce damaging straight line winds and tornadoes. We are uncertain if the air mass will become unstable enough to support robust thunderstorm development. For now, the severe weather threat will remain in the low to moderate category, but may be elevated as we gather more information.

As the storm departs early Thursday, a cold air mass will arrive in two surges. The initial surge will likely arrive late Thursday into Friday. This will drop high temperatures from the upper 60s on Thursday to the middle to upper 50s on Friday. The second surge will likely arrive late Friday through Saturday with the core of the cold centered over the weekend. High temperatures on Saturday and Sunday will struggle to reach the lower 50s, with some guidance suggesting we may not make it out of the 40s during the day in some areas. Before we pin down exact temperatures we need to get a better sample of the air mass arriving. This will occur over the next day or two. We do feel pretty confident that it will get colder on Saturday and Sunday. The only uncertainty in this occurring is related to the possibility of another storm system developing off of the coast. The associated cloud cover and rain chances would suppress daytime temperatures but allow for slightly warmer overnight lows. Stay with us over the coming days as the very complex pattern evolves.