Gusty Wind Storms Sunday Night with an Arctic Blast to Follow Early Next Week!

WBBJ 7 Forecast Update

1 hour ago

Joel Barnes,

WBBJ 7 Forecast Update:

After smashing a high temperature record on Christmas Eve (2nd Hottest December Day on Record), we fell short by a few degrees on Christmas day and today. There will be another shot at some records this weekend with Sunday being the most likely day to set one. A powerful cold front is coming in Sunday night that will bring a round of gusty wind storms with it as well as an arctic blast. We are under a marginal risk (1/5) for wind storms Sunday night and highs will only reach the 30s on Monday and Tuesday next week. The wind chill will fall into the teens at times early next week as well. Catch the latest on the timing of the late weekend storms and more on the cold blast coming up here.

THIS WEEK:

The winds were light on Christmas and remained out of the southwest keeping the temperatures up. The winds kicked up a bit on Friday but will not be much of an issue until Sunday afternoon. Highs reached the low 70s on Christmas and Friday. The records will be 75-76° from Thursday through Saturday so we will probably fall just short. We did smash a 70 year old record on Christmas Eve as we saw the 2nd warmest December temperatures on record of 78°.

Each day this week we were close to the record. It all depended on how long the sun peeks through each of those days and Wednesday (Christmas Eve) we saw the most sunshine. Warm and humid weather was aided by those southwest winds which also kept our overnight lows in the 60s most of the week. Friday night lows will fall down to around 60° tonight but with the high humidity and calm winds, some patchy fog will be possible Friday night into Saturday morning.

THE WEEKEND:

The weekend is going to be the tale of two days. The first day (Saturday) is going to be warm, a bit breezy and humid. Highs will reach the low to mid 70s near record highs before a powerful arctic blast of a cold front comes crashing through late Sunday night into Monday morning. There will be close to a 40 temperature drop from Saturday evening to Monday morning when lows will fall all the way back down near freezing. Highs will reach the mid 70s on Sunday before the front passes and the record high of 74° set back in 1984 is more likely than not to fall at this time. Saturday night lows will only fall into the mid 60s but you can slice that number in half for Sunday night.

There will be some gusty wind showers and maybe even some storm activity on Sunday as the front moves through. The greatest concern for severe weather will be straight line winds. Tornadoes, large hail and flooding seem unlikely with this event but we will be watching things closely as they unfold in the 7 Storm Team Weather Center this weekend. There could be a very brief period of freezing rain or a wintry mix or the back side of the showers into Monday morning, but any winter travel impacts are NOT expected and a dusting of anything frozen even seems highly unlikely as well at this time.

As of now, the greatest threat for storms will be after 10pm and some could stick around just before sunrise southeast of Madison county. Depending on the timing of the front, more of us could encounter the storms and the severity of the event might also kick up a bit. Everyone will pick up some rain and some gusty winds as the front pushes through into the overnight hours. We will be watching things closely this weekend in the 7 Storm Team Weather Center as the system gets a little closer. Look for updates online and on our weather app as well as social media platforms.

NEXT WEEK:

Very cold weather is coming back to kick off next week in West Tennessee as well as the entire Mid South. Highs will only reach the mid to upper 30s at best on Monday and Tuesday. We should warm back up near 50° by the middle of next week. Monday morning we will be in the low 30s near freezing but by Monday night, lows will fall all the way back down to around 20°. The winds will be gusty Monday morning making temperatures feel as low as the upper teens early in the day. The wind chill Tuesday morning will also be falling down into the teens. The actual temperature (non wind chill ) Monday night will fall down to around 20° and that is where we will bottom out from the next cold spell. We are not expecting anything too exciting in the snow or wintry mix category this time. There could be a system trying to clip us towards the back half of the next work week, but there is little confidence in that system doing much, if it even makes it this far south at this time.