Mother Nature* knows that College FOOTBAW (Editor’s Note: this misspelling appears to be intentional; draw your own inferences) season has begun. It just wouldn’t be tailgating for the opening game of the season if we didn’t burn ourselves to a crisp like those brats/hotdogs/hamburgers/bacon wrapped jalepenos filled with cream cheese (ya buddy).
We all got to watch the opening night heatbreaker/miracle (depending on where your bread is buttered) last night with the Ole Miss vs Vandy game. The lesser-talked-about-thing about that game was the fact that earlier in the day our heat indices were dang near 100. It was probably lesser talked about because it just simply wasn’t going to stop us rabid college FOOTBAW fans from partaking in what we have been waiting for all year. As mentioned, before Mother Nature made sure to bring us that scorching heat and oppressive direct sunlight to make us realize we are thirsty but delirious enough to think to quench it with…shall we say…beverages that aren’t designed to do that. So why do we do this to ourselves?
The opening day FOOTBAW festivities are not over with either. Whether it is Friday night lights at Nashville area high schools, watching Texas Tech open the Kliff Kingsbury Era against SMU with a true freshman walk-on by the name of Baker Mayfield, or that other game no one in this area cares about (cough), the air is primed and ready for you to get outside, sweat, re-hydrate, sweat some more, and watch some FOOTBAW!
As of 3 PM, Nashville was 93 over 70, which basically means it’s gross outside. There are two things wrong with an atmosphere like this. First, it feels like you could quench your thirst by breathing, and second there are usually showers nearby. Taking a look at the (Editor’s Note: comically, if not symbolically, blurred) OHX radar at 3 PM, we see this:
Much like yesterday, isolated showers and storms developing in the afternoon hours that are just as excited for FOOTBAW as we all are. The 90+ air temperatures and 70+ dewpoint temperatures rarely mean a quiet radar. The atmosphere is full of energy and us meteorologists have this thing called CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy or Crap that Allows Precipitation to Ensue) that we use to measure that. The HRRR illustrates where the max energy will be located at 7 PM tonight:
On a normal summer day, you see CAPE values in the 1000-3000 J/KG range. Today…uh…a little bit more. So to say we have a chance of storms this afternoon and evening…I’d say that’s fair. Good news though, CAPE comes from heating. Heating comes from sunlight. Thus, after that sun goes down, the storm chances will go down with it.
“But M&M, if the air has so much energy, shouldn’t we expect bad storms?”
Mmmmm…M&M’s. I mean…wait…what was the question? Oh, yeah that.
No, probably not. Reason being, although the low level atmosphere (what you and I feel on the ground) is plenty moist for us to feel gross, its not like that very high up in the atmosphere today. Thus, any storms that start will have a hard time building. Looky here:
Green line far from red line = dry. Dry = storm poison. Couple that info with the fact that we have downward motion overall in the vertical column and yeah…don’t worry about the storms. Worst case scenario you get a little wind and a nifty light show.
The weekend will be more of the same. Hot, gross, kinda stormy in the afternoons, with some gusty wind and lightning potential but all in all what you would hope for in the first College FOOTBAW Saturday of the year.
Well it is now 3:18 PM which means it is exactly 3 hours and 42 minutes until that interesting Texas Tech vs SMU game. Better get ready. Wreckem! FOOTBAW!
M&M out.
Mysterious Meteorologist
(*the official position of NashSevereWx.com is that Mother Nature does not exist).
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