Tonight's Forecast: Flooding & Severe Thunderstorms

Tonight in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry, we face a big rain event that could turn into a severe thunderstorm event.

A TORNADO WATCH is in effect until 10p.m. for the following counties: Appling, Bacon, Brantley, Glynn, Jeff Davis, Pierce, Ware and Wayne. A TORNADO WATCH means tornadoes could develop.

The rest of the area faces the threat of flooding. Many areas have already picked up a good amount of rain. If you live south of I-16, you could pick up between 3 to 5 inches of rain by Friday morning. This means at the end of this big storm system some spots could wind up with rainfall totals of 8 inches!

Due to the heavy rain and flood threat, it's best to stay put tonight. If you must travel, please follow this advice.
1. Slow down to prevent hydroplaning
2. Provide extra distance between you and other vehicles
3. If you come upon a water-covered roadway, turn around. The depth of the water can be deceiving, especially at night.
4. Find another route.
5. It only takes one foot of water to stall most vehicles.

Next, we face a threat of severe thunderstorms. If severe weather develops, we could see heavy rain, cloud-to-ground lightning, damaging winds, hail and even isolated tornadoes.

If you live in Georgia, the best chance to see severe thunderstorms will be between the hours of 10pm until 4am. If you live in South Carolina, your time frame comes a little later at midnight until 6am.

Stay tuned to STORM TEAM 3 for the very latest updates. We are providing live team coverage on WSAV, wsav.com and MyTV. We are also providing updates on facebook and twitter. If you have any pictures or video to share, please send it all to weather@wsav.com. We want to hear from you!

On Friday, we could see a few morning showers or thunderstorms. But the storm system is expected to move out quickly, providing clearing skies and a nice afternoon. With breezy west winds, afternoon highs will reach the mid 70s to the lower 80s.

On Friday night, skies will be clear, and we will drop to cooler overnight lows in the mid 40s to the lower 50s.

Saturday looks absolutely beautiful! Sunny skies...highs in the mid to upper 70s.

It's on Sunday that another storm system will move in, and it could set off another round of heavy rain and severe thunderstorms. And wait until you see what this storm system will leave behind...let's put it this way...you'll need the heat and you'll need to protect the plants. Yes...lows in the 30s...they could be back!

Stay safe tonight and keep looking up!

Updates on all watches and warnings in the area can be found on the WSAV Severe Weather Page