Temperatures will warm today and tomorrow before Georgia gets hit with an arctic blast right before Christmas.
According to the National Weather Service, temperatures today will hit 46 degrees with a 30% chance of rain overnight after 2 a.m.
During the day Thursday temperatures will reach 52 degrees before everything changes on Thursday night.
Temperatures Thursday night and Friday will drop drastically, with Friday’s high expected around 38 degrees, with lows in the teens and 20s, but wind chill will be a major factor at this point.
The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill watch from late Thursday night all the way through to Saturday morning. Dangerously cold wind chills will be possible with temperatures feeling as low as 10 degrees below zero.
What is Wind Chill?: Wind Chill describes what the air feels like to human skin due to the combination of cold temperatures and wind blowing on the skin. The higher the wind and the colder the temperature, the higher the wind chill.
In the mountains those wind chills could drive temperatures as low as 15 to 20 degrees below zero.
The weather service is reminding Georgians to take precautions, as this level of wind chill could cause hypothermia.
Temperatures are expected to rapidly begin dropping into the teens and 20s behind an arctic front
late Thursday night into Friday. Lows on Saturday morning will range from the single digits to mid teens across much of north and central Georgia. In addition, windy conditions are anticipated with northwest winds of 15 to 20 mph with frequent gusts of 30 to 40 mph likely. Higher gusts are possible in the
higher terrain.
As far as snow is concerned, there is a 30% chance of rain Thursday night. The weather service has not released details about rain chances Friday through the weekend.
It is still too early to predict the weather pattern for Christmas Day, but right now a high of 39 is expected. That does not factor in wind chill or information or what lows will be.
