Even though it seems too cold to ever worry about severe weather again, the Southeast will undergo significant warming over the next few days, reaching up to 70 degrees by Sunday. As the warm air flows back in ahead of a cold front, the chances of rain and thunderstorms, some even reaching severe levels, will go up. So far this month, large parts of the Southeast have remained almost dry, which has accounted for growing D0 conditions in the Drought Monitor, but rain should cover most of the area on Sunday into Monday, bringing welcome relief in some places. The map below shows the precip departure for the month to date across the Southeast, including a large swath of red and orange which indicates well below normal precipitation. This image is from https://water.weather.gov/precip/ and is based on radar estimates of rainfall.
You can see a time loop of predicted rainfall for the weekend at https://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/day47_6hrly.php. The top of the image allows you to slow down the loop or stop it so you can look at individual 6-hour maps. The time references for 12Z, for example, refer to Greenwich Mean Time, which meteorologists often call Zulu time. So for the Eastern Time Zone, a time of 12Z would be 7 am (5 hour difference this time of year behind London). You can see the rain starts to enter Georgia by 06Z or 1 am on Sunday but really picks up after that. This rainfall should put a dent in the driest areas. Showers will continue until late Tuesday.
