TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — It has become the cold-season version of the hurricane season: A social media post of a lone forecast model depicting an extreme weather event 10 days in advance.
The "extreme" event this time is the long-range projection for snow or frozen precipitation in the Southeast, along with temperatures falling into the teens locally.
Anytime there's a mention of freezing rain, sleet, or snow in the southern reaches of the Deep South, it's an attention-grabber. The spread of a viral social media post makes preliminary — and premature — forecast information harder to break down effectively.
Now that we are closer to the supposed "extreme" weather pattern, and the forecast data is getting better refined and detailed, the extremes are starting to wash out, and a more realistic (but still imprecise) outlook is coming into view.
There's solid belief in a cold front arriving into the Big Bend and southern Georgia Monday, carrying with it a stretch of rain and isolated thunderstorms. There is absolutely no chance for frozen forms of precipitation with it.
The Arctic high pressure behind it will be capable of shoving deep cold air into the region. Forecast highs will be in the 40s and 50s around midweek (Tuesday through Thursday).
Morning lows will fall to around freezing Tuesday morning with a breeze producing lower wind-chill values. Wednesday and Thursday mornings will reach the 20s in many inland locations.
We're monitoring smaller-scale forecast trends that can dictate whether a hard-freeze chance (lows closer to 20°) is possible. However, recent trends over the last few days have backed far away from any suggestions of the teens or lower 20s occurring broadly in our region.
Forecast trends are inconsistent about a system coming out of the Rockies, producing a disturbance in the western Gulf at midweek and streaking across the Gulf waters later in the week. Our forecast reflects increasing clouds Thursday and the peak of rain chances Friday. This is a shift from yesterday's forecast suggestions, which had focused more on rain coverage on Thursday.
While our air will still be somewhat chilly in the last half of the week, the deepest cold air will be well to our north. Current trends support some frozen precipitation chances in the Tennessee River Valley. There are no solid indications of such activity happening as far south as our latitude.
A winter-weather forecast one week out is about the same as the hurricane season projections for a storm one week in advance — very imprecise and inexact. Patterns and trends, and their consistency when analyzing forecast data, mean more than the solo long-term map frozen in time way in advance which, in reality, is very unreliable and unrealistic to expect things to pan out exactly like that.
We will always keep watch on forecast trends over the weekend to identify any legitimate changes that would alter this current line of thinking about the chances for cold and rain for the state line area over the next week.
