Freezing Weather Alerts in Nine Southern States for New Year’s Eve

Ahead of New Year’s Eve on Sunday, freezing weather is expected to impact nine states in the South.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued winter weather advisory warnings for parts of nine states as freezing temperatures are expected to hit Texas, Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama. The blast of colder air, set to move through the weekend, follows after a few Southeast states had their first snowflakes of the season late Friday night.

According to AccuWeather, meteorologists say that the storm that generated the snow will also reinforce the chilly air over the region that will last into Sunday and will send temperatures at night below freezing.

“While this is not expected to be the coldest air the region will see this winter, it will be quite a shock given the recent warmth,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty said. “The core of the cold will be Saturday night.”

Newsweek has reached out to NWS via email for comment.

Temperatures are expected to come down on Sunday morning in places like Gainesville and Tallahassee, Florida, and will be near or even below freezing in the 20s.

For parts of the Sunshine State, it will be the first time temperatures have plunged that low this season as Fox News also warns Florida will see unusually colder weather this time of year.

“This low has been pretty much a troublemaker, wherever it is across the northern Plains now, moving into the south,” FOX Weather meteorologist Kiyana Lewis said. “This cooler air mass filters in behind it, and we’ll see a lot of areas, where typically around this time of the year would be associated with warmer weather—Florida being one of those areas, that we watch closely towards the end of the week.”

Winter weather advisory warnings from the NWS also forecast snowfall of up to 18 inches in some areas and urge caution while traveling.

The warnings ended earlier this morning at 6 a.m. local time, for areas of middle Tennessee, including the towns of Livingston, Jamestown, Allardt and Sparta, that said up to 2 inches of snow could accumulate in higher areas. Warnings are also included until 4 p.m. on Saturday for areas at or above 3,000-feet elevation in the East Tennessee mountains.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it expects conditions to improve during the first few days of the new year, adding: “The outlook is rosy for most travelers at the start of 2024. A sprawling area of high pressure will keep most of the country dry. High temperatures are expected to be near or above average for much of the country through the first half of next week as Arctic air stays bottled up to the north.”

Meanwhile, parts of the East Coast have already seen their share of cold weather as they were battered by a winter storm, which left four dead, and thousands without power across Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut earlier this month.