Holiday Weekend Forecast and Harvey Gets Downgraded

We had a cloudy start to this Thursday, but it was still a better start than what we had the past two mornings with the dense fog.  Skies are starting to clear a little more, and they'll continue to do that going through the afternoon.  Slight rain chances still in play for our southern counties, as a few spots of light rain have developed over in southwestern Whiteside county.  Any rain that does form will die down by mid-day.

High pressure will keep our skies mostly sunny this afternoon, but it'll also pull in some cooler air from the north, which is why we'll only see the mid 70's this afternoon.  The skies will completely clear for the overnight, where we'll cool down a little more into the low 50's, possibly the upper 40's in a few locations.  We hang on to the clear skies for Friday, with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the mid 70's again.

Once we get into the weekend, that high pressure system will track east, and while this will keep the skies clear, it'll also warm up our temperatures.  We'll hit the low 80's on Saturday, around 83° on Sunday, and then the mid 80's on Monday.  However, the increasing temperatures do bring storm chances.  First storm chance is Sunday morning, but after that we stay dry for the afternoon.  Another storm chances comes in late Monday afternoon, after which a strong inflow of cold air will cool us down.  We could possibly see the mid 60's by the time we get to the middle of next week.

Tropical Depression Harvey Update:
Harvey got downgraded to a Tropical Storm, as winds have weakened down to 35mph.  The system is moving through Louisiana and now tracking over into Mississippi.  Texas is not expected to get any more rain, so at least they have some relief in that regard.  Rainfall will extend up north, with areas of northwestern Tennessee expected to see over 6" of rain between this morning (Thursday) and Saturday afternoon.

 Other areas will see between 4 to 6" of rain (in yellow) including central Tennessee, and a parts of Kentucky.  Less than 4" of rain (dark green) will be seen in eastern Tennessee, even extending into West Virginia.  The light green indicates lighter rainfall, so overall the accumulations are going down, however they're still not great given that 4" and greater is still a heavy amount of rain. 

Tropical Depression Harvey will push northeast as we head into the weekend, and is expected to die down Saturday afternoon. In total, from when Harvey hit land to when it dies down, some areas along the coastline will have seen around 50" of rain.  That's a little over 4 feet!