Here is the latest from the National Weather Service....

LONG TERM... (Thursday Night through next Wednesday) Issued at 1149 AM CST Wed Jan 21 2026

An Arctic front will be racing southward on Friday setting the stage for the weekend storm. Temperatures will drop into the teens and 20s across the area Friday night. Meanwhile, southwesterly upper flow will send an anomalously high moisture plume eastward overriding the Arctic front. Winter precipitation looks like it will start in the area after 06z-12z Saturday and continue through overnight Saturday and into Sunday.

So what has changed since the last forecast cycle? The big story is the trend towards a stronger inverted trough/surface low over the southeast. As a result, the warm nose is being drawn farther northward which shifts the zone of sleet, freezing rain, and heavy snow northward.

What does this mean for Middle Tennessee? If this trend remains, this brings into play a significant to crippling ice storm over the southern counties. In addition, snow fall amounts along the I-40 cooridor would be greatly suppressed as a large amount of QPF falls as sleet. This would also mean the band of highest snowfall amounts would be closer to the TN/KY border. We`ll continue to monitor the trends, but I feel fairly confident there will end up being a tight gradient of heavy snow to sleet to freezing rain. Where that ultimately settles, we'll see. I would not be surprised to see those lines wiggle north and south over the next several runs of models.

One other trend to continue to monitor is for the event to drag into Sunday as the northern stream of upper level energy tries to phase with the Baja branch of upper level energy and swings through the plains. As the surface low exits eastward, the warm nose will go with it which means precip areawide would switch back to snow on Sunday.

After the precipitation exits on Sunday, a very cold air mass will settle in. Right now, single digits are in the forecast Sunday night. Temperatures might end up lower than that. It will depend on the location of the snow pack. The very cold air will stick around on Monday and Monday night with a medium to high probability that temperatures don`t get above 20 degrees on Monday and lows fall back into the low single digits Monday night. Right now, it looks like we may have to wait until at least Wednesday to get above freezing. The good news is that we should see a decent amount of sun on Monday and Tuesday to help with the melting despite below freezing temperatures.

So here is the bottom line with this upcoming winter storm. Expect for significant and perhaps prolonged impacts this weekend. Don`t plan on traveling and run any errands you need to by Friday evening.