More cold weather coming, but snow not likely

Robert Young, 97, crosses Market Street during chilly morning weather downtown on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Paris Ridley waits for a bus on Market Street during chilly morning weather downtown on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

More potentially hazardous winter weather will be creeping into the Southeast Thursday afternoon, but the Chattanooga area most likely will miss the brunt of it.

A cold front coming in from the northwest is bringing rain late Thursday afternoon. Just north of the city, that rain is expected to turn into snow. For people in the Chattanooga area, however, the main weather event will be the dip in temperatures heading into the weekend, WRCB-TV Chief Meteorologist Paul Barys said Wednesday afternoon.

Derek Eisentrout, National Weather Service meteorologist, said there is a small possibility of the rain mixing in with a little bit of snow in the higher elevations after midnight tonight, but there won't be any accumulations.

While temperatures won't be as cold as they were at the beginning of the month, Barys said, winds will make it feel a bit colder than it is.

Rains will let up for Friday, but another storm system will roll into the area late Saturday and stay through Sunday. Eisentrout said that system isn't likely to bring any snow to the area, either.

The rain is eagerly welcomed, as January has wrapped up to be the third driest since 1879, with only 1.1 inches of rain. The driest January was in 1986 with only 0.9 inches of rain.

This lack of rain has put the area in a moderate drought, Barys said.

"Since winter started, we're 5.3 inches [of rain] below normal," he said. "And this is the wet time of year, so this is bad news."

But even with the rain that is set to come to the area over the weekend, Barys said it won't be enough.

"The only thing that may help is the [rain] moving in next Wednesday," he said. "We need four or five inches, but you don't want it all at once."

He said that normally this time of year gets an average of about 0.16 inches per day.

"So if we're not getting that, it takes a while to build up again," Barys said.

And as days get longer and warmer, it's easier to slip into a drought, Eisentrout said.

"It's not just about your precipitation," he said. "It's also about soil moisture and things like that."

Climate predictions for February don't show any strong signals for this month being above or below normal climatology for the region, Eisentrout said.

"There's no set pattern there that will tell us what to expect," he said.

Contact staff writer Rosana Hughes at rhughes@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327 with tips or story ideas. Follow her on Twitter @HughesRosana.