Delta Expected This Weekend as a Tropical Depression. Timing, Impacts, Uncertainties, Titans.

Posted on by Marilee Caldwell

Nothing to talk about today or Thursday. Mid 80°s and sunshiny.

Hurricane Delta Will Be Tropical Depression Delta When It Gets Here

Hurricane Delta is expected to make landfall on the Louisiana coast Friday night.

cone graphic

It will weaken and move inland and head our way this weekend.

Models disagree when the rain will get here (and when it’ll leave).

We’re pretty dry so it should be difficult to flood us out.

And it looks like the heaviest rain will go west.

The GFS model predicts this will be a late Friday night, most/all day Saturday, gone around noon Sunday rain event.

Notice all the heavy rain goes west of us.

The Euro model slows Delta down, swings it further west, and rains a little bit on us Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Both models suggest the heaviest rain will be west of us sometime Saturday, Saturday night, into Sunday morning:

  • Rainfall Totals Sat-Sun (Model)
Editor’s Note: I tweeted this morning about Delta’s track. If the center swings west that’ll be less rain for us, but if it swings further east we will end up in the higher-rain area. I know this is like saying if it rains more, it’ll rain more (duh), but the idea is that the models don’t know. I would rather us be honest about uncertainty while sharing the data than one of those weather providers that only take educated guesses, hoping to hit it right, so their marketing department can run ads about how “accurate” they are, as if accuracy and pride serve you better than honesty, humility, nuance, and explanation.

Winds, tornadoes?

Not really worried about that, but we will watch it. Today NWS-Nashville wrote:

Forecast soundings show impressive low level shear with the weakening tropical cyclone as it moves into the area on Saturday, but with little or no instability. Thus the several weather risk also currently appears very low, but will have to keep an eye on it.

So without instability, you can’t get tornadoes. However, with the center of what will be a tropical depression passing close by to our west, we always have to keep an eye out for a quick, usually weak, spin up tornado. We’ll be watching the west side of the storm as it moves north through LA to see if it’s producing tornadoes in MS. That’ll be a clue. For now, I’m not worried about it, and it should not trigger March 3 tornado anxiety.

As far as winds go, the GFS model (which predicts Delta closer to us and therefore windier) has only 30+ MPH wind gusts. Not that big of a deal.

I know the Bills/Titans game has other concerns right now but if the game is played expect rain and some challenging, gusting winds. If any visiting team can handle wind, it’s the Bills, who play games in that ridiculous wind rolling off the lake they have up there. But Brett Kern is from that area so as usual we’ll win the punting contest for that one time we’ll have to punt in our 35 point dub.

Better information on the forecast of impacts for Middle Tennessee will become clearer over the next few days. Old information is no good, new information is almost always best.