The latest 7-day QPF forecast shows that with the passage of the line of storms yesterday, quieter and drier weather should return to the region for the next few days, although the line remains in northern Florida where it is dropping some showers today. The rest of the region should be dry through the rest of the weekend. By mid-week, another system will start to move into the region from the west, bringing showers to Alabama before they spread eastward to the rest of the region by late in the week.
The longer-range forecasts continue to show a change in the weather pattern to something much colder than we have seen in the past month. Current temperature forecasts indicate that there are likely to be at least two separate cold outbreaks around the 15th and 20th that could bring frost to a lot of the region outside of Florida and the counties of AL and GA just to the north of the border or near the coast. That is as far out as the forecasts go for now, so there could be more cold outbreaks after that.
While we have to treat these very-long-range forecasts with some skepticism, it is a reminder that many areas are not out of the frost season yet, so producers that use frost protection to protect vegetables and fruit should be watching the updated forecasts carefully to see what they might need to do to get ready, like making sure they have tested their irrigation systems and have fuel and labor on hand to run pumps or other equipment. Remember that freezing conditions often come for a couple of nights in a row, with an advective freeze the first night as the cold air moves in followed by a radiation freeze the second night as the clouds clear out and the wind dies down. If the air that moves in is very dry with a low dew point temperature, it is hard for some irrigation systems to provide enough water to keep the temperature at freezing. You can read more at https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1479.
