Atlanta faces freeze after 70-degree drop

At this hour, we have... Clouds that abound and then a few specs showing up on the radar here. Temperatures generally in the 60s at this hour. We managed to tap 70 degrees here in Atlanta and then we shot right back down into the 60s. You're holding on to a 70 degree temperature in Eatonton at this hour, but pretty much the 70s are done, likely at least for the next five to six days. I don't see a big revival in the temperature rallying back into the 70s even into next week. After all, we're talking about that big cliff. That is coming up in terms of the temperature drop as we get into the day tomorrow, but certainly by Friday into Saturday. Right now, we're at 65 degrees once more at the airport. A light breeze out of the west at 6 miles an hour. A blanket of cloud cover is giving us mostly cloudy skies at this moment. The dew point has crept up a bit, and that does signal that we have a little bit of moisture that we can activate as a front comes through. We're about 5 degrees cooler than we were at this time yesterday. The winds are going to start piping up. They're not going to be howling at any point, but you may notice them shoving you around, especially. Especially as you step in from any activities you may have tonight. The kids have any games or anything. They're clouds out and about, but don't be too concerned about them. There could be some passing showers across the far northern tier. Generally, if you get some winds that come tonight, they're going to be between about 10-15 mph, maybe gusts up near 20 mph. This little line of shower activity is going to prance through during the darkness of night. It is around 1011 o'clock when it gets started rolling over 5975 up across northwest and north central northeast Georgia getting in on the action and the northern. Metro by 2 o'clock in the morning. You may wake up tomorrow morning to find that there is a little bit of wet ground but there should be nothing falling from the sky. This is the view at 6am. You can see here the temperature is at 55 in the city, 50 even in Blairsville. Those numbers will be hard to come by 24 hours later. It's now 12 noon, recess a go for the students tomorrow. A great day to get outside but the winds are going to really be picking up. So the winds may not be problematic tonight or even through the overnight But it's the afternoon winds that will speak louder than anything. Gusts easily topping some 25, 30 miles an hour. As the winds start to soften, they will have already brought in that cold air. We lose our sunlight on Thursday evening, and that's when the temperature goes for a nosedive. So it feels like 40 degrees, despite the thermometer reading 46 degrees. That's in Blairsville at six o'clock tomorrow. Down there in Griffin, 54 degrees. We can deal with that. But this is when the air absolutely turns its back on us. Now going into the early morning hours of your Friday and look at this just an outright drop of the temperatures. It feels like 25 when you wake up heading to school and to work there in the mountains. That's Friday morning at 8 o'clock. So you have plenty of sunshine, but with the wind still hustling a bit and that cold air laying over the area, temperatures are going to really struggle and it will feel like it's in the 20s in the mountains feeling like 31 degrees. That's not Saturday morning. This is Friday morning, folks. So for those of you who control the thermostat at your workplaces or the places where you go, make sure you go ahead and hike up that heat at least by Thursday night to prepare for what is on the horizon. For the day on Friday as we go throughout the day, the temperatures are going to struggle. We may get up to about 4850 degrees here in town, but it's going to feel like it's in the 40s, even with sunshine as we go up to the mountains here. You can see here the temperatures are going to start out in the 20s in most cases, and they're going to barely try to sneak in the 50s like in Helen by Saturday afternoon. Most communities, especially in the higher elevations, will spend a better part of the weekend below 50 degrees here in the metro area. We'll drop down to 36 to kick off Saturday morning. But the real stunner comes with near freezing temps by Sunday. Pets, pipes, and plants. We'll talk about all that. And even Alex Forbes standing by to talk about the chance for some flakes.