Start dreaming of a warm, wet Christmas.
Meteorologists say Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia residents will experience temperatures flirting with record highs this week. But while you can keep your sweaters in the closet, you’ll want to bring that raincoat with you. The same weather pattern that is gifting your neighborhood with a dash of holiday warmth is also bringing buckets of precipitation.
Unusually warm air, passing over the cold water of Chickamauga Lake, caused midday fog to sit close to Highway 153 traffic atop the Chickamauga Dam shortly after noon on Tuesday.
Wearing shorts and a tee shirt, Jarom (CQ) Smartt runs across the Market Street Bridge on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015, in downtown Chattanooga, Tenn. Wet and unseasonably warm conditions are forecast for the Chattanooga area for the next week. In some parts of Tennessee, residents are even staring at the threat of tornadoes today.
WRCB-TV meteorologist Paul Barys said the storms and unusual spike in temperatures are the result of tropical Pacific moisture transported into the Southeast by a jet stream.
This is also contributing to the rainfall you’re probably watching from the living room window. Unless you’re already outside, using the newspaper to keep your head dry. (You’re welcome.)
Barys said the jet stream carried the moisture through Mexico, Texas and into the Southeast.
“It’s like a fire hydrant with water flowing,” he said. “Since the Gulf of Mexico is there, it’s adding even more water.”
There is also an “outside chance” people in Middle Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau could experience tornadoes.
Carly Kovacik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Peachtree City, Ga., office, said this is caused by wind flowing in two different directions.
Near the surface of the Earth, Kovacik said, the wind will be flowing south at about 5 mph. But much higher in the atmosphere, the wind will be flowing west at about 30 mph. That will cause a potential storm to swirl.
In addition to today’s rain, Barys said, showers could hit the region on Thursday and Friday. But as the precipitation falls, the temperatures should remain in the low 70s.
The temperatures could exceed local record highs for this time of year.
Today’s temperature is expected to hit 71 degrees, about 3 degrees shy of the record from 1970. Thursday should hit 73, about 2 degrees short of the high from 1964. And Friday also should flirt with Chattanooga’s record high for Christmas: 75 degrees.
“Our lows are going to be way above the normal,” Barys said. “It’s crazy.”
Northwest Georgia also should be about as warm as it has ever been.
In Rome, Ga., for example, Kovacik said the temperature should hit 75 degrees on Christmas Eve. That would be 2 degrees short of the record.
On Christmas, the temperature should hit about 72 degrees. That’s also 2 degrees short of the record.
“We’ll get close,” Kovacik said.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6476.