SATURDAY’S WEATHER-TRAFFIC: Sunshine ushers in springy weekend

After last weekend’s storms and a week of cool temperatures, rain and wind, this Saturday promises a 180-degree difference.

A clear, cold night will bloom into a bright day with plenty of sunshine and a high temperature of 62 degrees. It will be the first of several successive days of warmer temperatures - including a beautiful Easter Sunday with a high of 69 degrees. However, that sunny, warming trend comes with a catch: pollen counts Saturday will reach the extremely high range.

“The pollen count was temporarily down yesterday when that rain came through, and now it’s back up over 5,000,” Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brad Nitz said Friday. The main culprits are common trees, including pine, oak, sweet gum and birch. “That yellow pollen you see all over everything? That’s the pine pollen,” Nitz said.

Expect sunny weather and a warming trend ahead for the next several days.

A freeze warning is in effect for Saturday’s early morning hours, with a low temperature of 33 degrees in Atlanta and colder outside the city. With the sunny weather, temperatures will recover to the 60s by afternoon but still stay cooler than usual for this time of year. “We stay shy of our average temperature of 69 by about five degrees in Atlanta,” Nitz said.

The cold air keeping temperatures low will move out of the region over the weekend, bringing a strong warming trend that will top out around 80 degrees next Wednesday. No rain is expected until late next week.

Nice weather should help with holiday weekend traffic, but there will be certain areas where the Georgia Department of Transportation is alerting drivers about weekend lane closures. In Gwinnett County, I-85 will have lane closures as crews work to repair and resurface sections of the road. These repairs will take place in both northbound and southbound lanes between Jimmy Carter Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road.

Sunday night in Cobb County, expect lane closures and traffic pacing on Marietta Parkway as crews perform resurfacing activities between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Monday morning.

As usual, there will be lane closures and traffic pacing on Ga. 400 and I-285 as the Transform 400/285 project continues.

» For a detailed forecast, visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution weather page.