Cold rain continues through Wednesday

Overnight, the steady rain will shift east, but areas farther west will still see periods of light rain or drizzle. Some of the rain could briefly come at a good clip tonight, but flooding isn’t expected. Most spots will pick up another half inch to one inch of rain, while other areas could see one to two inches up to three in a few spots. In the mountains, a few flakes or pellets of sleet could mix in late tonight or early Tuesday, but no accumulation is expected. Temperatures will stay close to normal overnight.

On Tuesday, light rain and drizzle will continue for much of the day. A wedge of cool air will stick around, keeping temperatures well below normal,  except for parts of the Little Tennessee Valley and lower French Broad Valley near the Tennessee border, where it’ll be a bit milder.

Tuesday night through Thursday:

A strong dip in the jet stream will cover much of the eastern U.S. through midweek. A new storm system will form over the Southern Plains on Wednesday and move east. This will bring another round of widespread rain to our region. The heaviest totals around 2 to 3 inches are likely along the mountains, with 1 to 1.5 inches elsewhere. Rain could briefly become heavy, especially in the mountains, but flooding issues are not expected. Overall, it looks like another soaking rain event.

Because of the cool air wedge still in place Wednesday, high temperatures will stay well below normal again.

Hurricane Melissa: Melissa outer bands are lashing the Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Cuba.  Melissa reached Cat 5 state this morning, and is expected to make landfall early morning Tuesday as a CAT 5 or strong CAT 4 storm.  At this point intensity doesn’t matter but the slow movement of Melissa continues to be the main issue that will cause prolonged flooding, extreme winds and a unsurvivable storm surge.  At this point Melissa hasn’t weakened a bit and is beating all odd.  This also potentially will be a nocturnal landfall making for more devastation.  Stay tuned!