Winter weather tileLegendary poet Percy Bysshe Shelley is credited with asking “if winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
Shelley would need to make such an encouraging statement in a peacoat if he were alive in Gig City today, because the Chattanooga area could see its first snow flurries of the season as soon as this evening.
The southeast portion of the state will be hit with cold weather starting today, according to the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn.
“There’s a really strong Canadian cold front, you could call it, that’s bringing in chillier air from the Great Lakes,” said Andrew Pritchett, an NWS meteorologist in Morristown. “It’s the first really strong front of the cool season.”
Today’s high will stay in the low 40s, and lows could dip into the 20s as night falls. The night’s forecast is also projected as “breezy,” which may cause any remaining leaves — which Shelly describes as “yellow, black and pale, and hectic red” — to finally submit to late fall conditions and wind speeds of up to 20 mph.