Nice day! Sunny and mild before a cooler weekend

Today shapes up to be a nice, mild fall day before some noticeably cooler air arrives this weekend.

Ahead of the front extra warm air arrives making for a pleasant afternoon.

The morning starts on the cool side with lows in the 40s and 50s, but today’s sunshine easily takes highs into the 70s. Some places in Southside even reach 80.

Highs are close to average today before the change in our pattern.

Skies are mostly clear during the day. There is enough moisture that a few stray, spotty showers could develop in the afternoon. Anything that does develop is very short-lived: football games tonight will go ahead without any issue.

The breeze is noticeable as games get started tonight, but it’s not quite cold enough for wind chill to set in.

A cold front headed our way means a big temperature drop from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning.

Temperatures drop from about average into the 30s for some lows.

Behind the cold front cool, dry air from our north heads right towards us.

The front is strong in terms of temperatures: most of us drop more than 10 degrees from Friday’s highs to what we see Saturday.

The cold front is strong when it comes to temperature change, but the rest of our weather is consistent.

Despite the temperature change much of our weather remains relatively unchanged. Skies stay sunny and winds mostly stay calm through the weekend and into next week.

There is a bit of a breeze late Friday and early Saturday as the front moves through. When temperatures are below 50 degrees that wind makes it feel an extra degree or two cooler.

High pressure behind the front keeps us particularly dry. You’ll want a jacket in the mornings, but you don’t need an extra layer to keep the rain away.

Any spotty showers on Friday are followed by dry conditions this weekend.

For the last few months whenever we had sunny weather our pollen count would jump up. The pollen count is low both before and after the front so allergy sufferers get a bit of a break.

Pollen is taking a break for now. If you want to enjoy the cooler weather this is a great weekend to get outside.

The post-frontal cooldown means we feel more like Halloween for this first part of October. Temperatures stay below average into the middle of next week.

Within a few weeks we swung from feeling like August to feeling like early November.

The Highlands and New River Valley start seeing frost around this time of year and given how cool we are behind the front some morning frost is likely. Winds are a bit high early on Saturday for that frost to form given that the front is still moving through, but Sunday and Monday have better chances.

Frost is not out of the question for this time of the year, but it is coming a bit early for Southside.

While you won’t be waking up to frost today or tomorrow you want to make sure to have any sensitive plants covered by Sunday.

With consistent sunshine and high pressure moving to our east warmer temperatures arrive by the start of the work week.

Source: WSLS News 10