It won’t feel like it over the next few days, but metro Atlanta is “headed right back into the freezer” next week, along with a threat of more snow.
That’s according to Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brian Monahan, who said the crash in temperatures is expected Sunday night into Monday, when tens of thousands of visitors will be in the city for the College Football Playoff National Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Martin Luther King Jr. Day events.
Tuesday and Wednesday bring the potential for snow, although forecast models are far from certain this far in advance. Still, out-of-state fans leaving Atlanta after the 7:30 p.m. Monday title game between Ohio State and Notre Dame should be aware of the possibility that wintry weather could snarl travel plans. At the very least, they are in store for a chilly visit.
The weather pattern echoes the lead-up to last week’s winter storm, which brought up to 3½ inches of snow to some parts of the metro area and prompted warnings to stay off the roads Friday and Saturday. Schools did their part to help avoid disaster by preemptively closing Friday, and numerous events were postponed around the city. The storm brought the most widespread snow the region has seen since January 2018.
This time around, the frigid weather is expected to arrive during the long and action-packed holiday weekend. City officials previously estimated that the football game and various events could attract 100,000 visitors to Atlanta.
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Hendren for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lows will plunge into the teens heading into MLK Day, and highs are expected to stay at or below freezing Monday and Tuesday.
“Arctic cold air spilling south out of the North Pole is going to bring us our coldest air of the season so far, even colder than last week,” Monahan warned.
The forecast does not call for snow Monday — at least not yet. But daytime temps are expected to be in the 20s and 30s, and a strong wind chill will make it feel like single digits.
If the high doesn’t top 30 degrees Monday, it’ll tie the record lowest high temperature set in 1940, according to the National Weather Service. And so far, we’ve had the overall coldest January since 2014.
Much like the recent winter storm, the upcoming cold blast is expected to dip across the Southeast and could then clash with moisture pushing in from the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. That’s what is driving the potential for midweek snow then and on Wednesday.
“We still don’t have a great handle on what’s going to happen,” the Weather Service said in a Thursday forecast update. “There are too many competing variables in the major (forecast) models ... The key takeaway here is that it still remains a possibility.”
Before the cold, though, we’ll have slightly above-average highs Friday as temps climb to near 60 degrees. Then, we’ll see a slight decrease in temps starting Saturday, when widespread showers are expected, potentially bringing up to 2 inches of rain.
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