The latest 7-day QPF map shows that most of the rain from the system that is currently in the region is moving south and is now in southern GA and AL and into Florida, where the front will stall over the next few days. That will bring a lot of rain to the Sunshine State, as expected in an El Nino winter. By mid-week a new system will bring precipitation to the Tennessee River Valley. This will move off to the East Coast late in the week, bringing some showers to that area.
Note that this cold outbreak is what is all that is left of what the models predicted several weeks ago, but it will be short-lived and temperatures will soon be above normal again, although there are likely to be some freezes in northern AL and GA and points north from there in the next two weeks or so. The long-range weather models only go out to the first week in March, so we don’t know whether any more cold outbreaks are coming, but the average last frost date for the Peach Belt where most commercial peaches are grown is mid-March, so we aren’t out of the woods yet. I know peach producers are watching conditions carefully because most varieties have gotten sufficient chill hours to be ready to bloom when it gets warm, and I also know that leaves are starting to come out on bushes here in Athens so the spring leaf-out and soon the bloom season is on the way.
