RAIN & STORMS MOVE EAST TODAY; FEW SHOWERS POSSIBLE SATURDAY… Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is a great year for you and for your entire family. Rain and storms will continue to gradually move east today. I expect most areas to be drying out by the time we get to the early afternoon hours. Temperatures will peak in the low-70s today ahead of cooler air arriving this weekend. Most spots will be dry tonight ahead of the potential for a few showers on Saturday. Rain will be most likely to happen locally across the southeastern quadrant of our area on Saturday, particularly in Covington, Okaloosa, Walton, Santa Rosa, Escambia (AL), and Escambia (FL) counties. After the rain chance on Saturday, we go fully sunny on Sunday! More forecast details are below.

LEVEL 1 (OUT OF 5) SEVERE WEATHER RISK… The Storm Prediction Center continues to include the eastern half of our region in a conditional, Level 1 (out of 5) severe weather risk through the late morning hours. This seems like more of a technicality at this point, as it is clear the storms last night never really materialized.

SHOWERS POSSIBLE AT TIMES ON SATURDAY… Rain will be possible on Saturday, particularly in areas along, south, and east of I-65. This means communities farther to the southeast in our local area like Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, and Navarre have a slightly higher rain chance than communities that are inland. Clouds will continue to stream in from the southwest before gradual clearing happens Saturday night. High temperatures on Saturday will be in the low-60s.

COLD NIGHTS STARTING SATURDAY NIGHT… We will have several nights with overnight lows in the 30s starting on Saturday night. The coldest night out of the next 7 nights will likely be on Sunday night into Monday morning when overnight lows will be in the mid-30s.

MUCH COOLER ON SUNDAY… Sunshine returns on Sunday with much cooler, much more stable air in place across our region. We are calling for full sunshine throughout the day with high temperatures only in the upper-50s. Winds will be out of the northwest at 5-10 mph.

SUNNY MONDAY & TUESDAY… Full sunshine is expected on Monday and on Tuesday. High temperatures will rebound into the low-60s on Monday afternoon. We will reach the mid-60s by Tuesday afternoon.

INCREASING CLOUDINESS WEDNESDAY AHEAD OF RAIN THURSDAY… Clouds will begin to once again increase across our area on Wednesday ahead of showers becoming possible at times on Thursday. An area of low pressure is expected to develop to our west and rapidly progress eastward across the Deep South. This means increasing rain chances on Thursday. It is too early to know if strong storms will be involved, but right now parameters don’t look particularly supportive of severe weather. We’ll keep watching trends over the next few days.

APP ALERTS… redzoneweather.com/app is the link where you can download the free RedZone Weather app. We post brief updates throughout each day in the app, keeping you up-to-date about the latest happenings in weather across south Alabama and northwest Florida. Once you have the free app downloaded to your iOS or Android device, be sure to visit the Alerts tab (lower right corner) then tap the large, yellow Alert Settings button to customize the alerts you would like to receive straight from me.

See all the details in your Friday #rzw forecast video. Have a great day!

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