An arctic blast is expected to bring the coldest temperatures to Chattanooga in nearly eight years early Friday when temperatures are forecast to sink into the single digits.
As winter officially arrived Wednesday, the National Weather Service predicted temperatures in the city will drop to 8 or 9 degrees in the predawn hours Friday and rise to the mid-teens Friday afternoon in the coldest weather in Chattanooga since January 2015.
A trace of snow is expected in Chattanooga on Friday, and wind gusts are forecast up to 30 mph, which will push the wind chill index, or how cold it feels, into subzero temperatures.
“We’re going to have a big surge of arctic air move across much of the country and could bring the wind chill to the lowest we’ve had in this area in years,” Kyle Snowdin, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tennessee, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We’re only expecting a dusting of snow in Chattanooga, but with the cold weather, we’re going to have very strong winter winds.”
Friday’s low is expected to set a record in Chattanooga for the day before Christmas Eve. In response, homeless missions are opening their cold weather shelters and utilities in Chattanooga are bracing for higher energy consumption and the possibility of more frozen or broken water lines and pipes where they are exposed to the cold.