Hot, Humid, May Storm; Rinse & Repeat. What We Know, What We Think We Know, What We Don’t Know.

Posted on by David

The forecast is essentially the same every day this week.

What We Know

Hot every day this week. At least 90°. More clouds, and the temp will get closer to 90°; fewer clouds and it’ll get closer to 95°. Today looks like a “fewer clouds” day.

Important: these forecast temps are for the shade. Not in the sun! Obviously, it’ll be hotter in the sun.

Yeah.

Also humid. Oppressive in the morning, then on the upper end of Uncomfortable in the afternoon.

What We Think We Know

It should rain somewhere in Nashville or Williamson County. There will be plenty of storm fuel (Convective Available Potential Energy) sitting on top of us all, just waiting for:

(1) it to get hot enough to defeat high pressure and release the energy, or

(2) cold air coming from a nearby storm to kick-start the thunderstorm-making process.

Today’s HRRR model shows storm development beginning early this afternoon:

We “think we know” this because it’s also possible these storms will miss Nashville and Williamson Co.

Storms won’t move much, and they should not last much longer than an hour.

Tornadoes are super unlikely. There will be no shear to spin them up. However, we have had weak tornadoes, called “shamnadoes,” in past summers, but again, tornadoes are very far down the list of storm concerns.

What We Don’t Know

We don’t know exactly where the storms will be. Your outdoor activity decisions should be guided by your risk tolerance and proximity to safety should a storm pop up. I think it’s more likely than not, each day, that the storms will miss you, but we can’t really tell you for sure.

We don’t know exactly when. Generally, though, storms are most likely during the hottest part of the day, ending after dark

We don’t know how bad storms will be. Sometimes, they’re just rain. Most of the time there’s some lightning. Some storms can produce 30 MPH to 60+ MPH winds, with hail.

Examples below.

Yesterday:

Day before yesterday:

Just SW of Franklin

https://twitter.com/JosephHudak3/status/1007754459810877440

We will update the forecast as needed @NashSevereWx on Twitter. Not on Twitter? We have you covered.