This cold Friday night will lead to a stunningly beautiful weekend.

Temperatures fell quickly with sunset, and we are on our way to another cold night with lows near 40, and even middle to upper 30’s some areas.  It remains a very dry air mass, and will stay so through the weekend.  That means both Saturday and Sunday will be sunny.  And with the wind turning around out of the south, temperatures will respond reaching the low to middle 70’s on Saturday, and middle to upper 70’s on Sunday.  In short, it will be a terrific weekend!
Next week will be a different story.  For 1 thing, we will have some rather stoudt winds at least Monday into Tuesday because of the combined circulation around high pressure to our north and low pressure to our south, and that low will be at least partly tropical storm or extra-tropical storm Ida.  There might also be coastal flooding along the Alabama coast and the Florida panhandle.
As for rain, that is a challenging forecast.  Rain will try to move in Monday night and last into Tuesday, but if the northern high is strong enough, it may shunt much of the rain to our south.