TYLER, Texas — A major cooldown is headed for East Texas with our next cold front. Thankfully, we still have time to prepare for its arrival.
Tomorrow morning starts out as a typical winter-like day for East Texas. We'll have a partly to mostly cloudy sky and temperatures will be in the low-40s. By lunchtime, the cold front will begin to arrive into East Texas.
At times, light rain will fall along the leading edge of the boundary. Any moisture leftover behind the front will attempt to fall in the form of sleet or snow. Many of us will stay dry as the front blows through and for those who get any wintry weather, it won't cause any travel issues or delays.
Temperatures will be in the 50s as the front arrives, but they'll fall very quickly after it passes. On top of that, we'll have wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph behind the front, which means the wind chill will begin taking over. Already by 5 p.m., "feels-like" temperatures across the region will be in the teens.
Skies stay clear overnight and cold air continues rushing into East Texas. We'll wake up Friday morning with an air temperature around 10 degrees! When you factor in the wind, we'll feel as cold as 4 degrees below zero. This will mark the coldest air in East Texas since the winter storm of February 2021.
Even though a mostly sunny sky will help us warm into the upper-20s Friday afternoon, the wind will continue blowing fiercely. "Feels-like" temperatures that afternoon will only reach the teens.
Finally, winds will begin to calm down by Christmas Eve morning, but we'll still have enough of a breeze around that it'll impact our temperature. With a low close to 20 degrees, the added breeze will make it feel like the single digits throughout the morning. By the afternoon, winds will be light and our temperature will rebound into the mid-30s.
Be sure to take care of the 4 Ps: people, pets, pipes and plants. If you need any additional information on how to properly prepare each of those, we've got links to other articles on our website that will help you out. Remember not to panic ... we've still got time to prepare for this arctic surge.
Besides, it'll feel just like home for Santa in East Texas this weekend!
