Temps will climb into the 80s, with increasing humidity. Wednesday and Thursday will feel more like summer than spring. With that comes a decent chance of afternoon pop-up showers, or maybe a thunderstorm. There are two chances of severe weather: Tuesday and Thursday night into Friday morning.
Category: Featured Blog
The Week Ahead: 80s Thru Wed, then a Big Cold Front (Storms?)
Monday – Thursday
High temps will be in the low 80s, with only a slight chance of an afternoon/early evening shower or thunderstorm Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Here’s the NWS weather-speak for Monday through Thursday:
LOW-LEVEL MOISTURE INCREASING AND INSTABILITY...ESPECIALLY IN THE AFTERNOON...LIKELY TO SPELL ISOLATED-SCATTERED STORMS THRU THAT PERIOD, ALTHOUGH MOST LOCATIONS WILL BE DRY.
The Big Cold Front
Our NWS expects a cold front to arrive during the wee hours of Friday morning. The storm is expected to have little CAPE (thunderstorm building blocks), but there will be a lot of wind shear and plenty of moisture to work with.
This means
[WE] COULD SEE LOCALIZED SEVERE STORMS AS WELL AS MINOR FLASH FLOODING.
Beautiful Weekend Continues, then the 80ºs are Back! Storms Thursday?
Beautiful Weekend Ahead. Storms Next Week?
Glorious Weekend
Our NWS issued a Frost Advisory, effective Saturday morning from 4am to 8am. Here’s why:
WITH NEARLY FULL RADIATIONAL COOLING SETTING UP, TEMPERATURES WILL SLIP BELOW 40 DEGREES MOST AREAS, WITH FROST DEVELOPING BY MORNING. WITH TEMPERATURES DROPPING DOWN TO 33-37 DEGREES IN OUTLYING AREAS WEST OF THE PLATEAU, HAVE ISSUED A FROST ADVISORY FOR THE 09Z-13Z [4AM-8AM] PERIOD.
The End Of The Rain Is In Sight
And Now, Rain Through the Rest of the Day
9:30am NWS & 11:30am SPC Updates: Severe Threat Remains
Watch the above banner for any Advisories or Warnings.
Expect a line (or a few small lines) of storms today. Main storm impacts will include:
- Damaging straight line winds.
- Heavy rain and perhaps localized flash flooding due to the slow movement and “training” of the storms.
- Isolated tornadoes.
- Multiple clusters of storms – not a classic “one line” of storms.
The severe development should begin along and near I-65, then move east. So, a storm may not become severe until they reach Davidson or Williamson Counties, then move east (where the severe risk is greater).
Noon-3PM ETA for Risk of Damaging Wind, Hail, Maybe a Tornado
The storm line itself is moving east very, very slowly. It weakened considerably overnight. This morning, the line is located between Memphis and Nashville. There are no watches or warnings in effect.
The storms inside the line are moving north-north-east.
As the line itself crawls east over Davidson & Williamson Counties, storms are expected to “regenerate,” move north-north-east inside the line, and likely strengthen into strong or severe thunderstorms. Our NWS:
THUNDERSTORMS WILL STRENGTHEN AFTER 8 AM THIS MORNING WITH THE ACTIVITY LIKELY APPROACHING SEVERE LEVELS BY 10 AM OR NOON ACROSS WESTERN AREAS OF THE MID STATE. THE SEVERE THREAT WILL THEN MOVE EASTWARD THROUGH THE DAY WITH THE THREAT REACHING THE PLATEAU BETWEEN 5 PM AND 8 PM. WE ARE STILL LOOKING AT DAMAGING WINDS BEING THE PRIMARY SEVERE WEATHER THREAT. HOWEVER...LOW LEVEL SHEAR APPEARS TO BE STRONG ENOUGH SO THAT ISOLATED TORNADOES CANNOT BE RULED OUT.
Damaging Winds, Isolated Tornado Risk, Heavy Rain: ETA 10am-3pm Thursday
Severe weather looks likely tomorrow.
WHEN?
The weather models still disagree. Our NWS is going with “anywhere between 10am and 3pm.” Best bet for us is “around midday.” However, the timing is “very uncertain.”
WAIT. DO YOU MEAN THOSE STORMS ALMOST IN MEMPHIS AT 9PM MAY TAKE MORE THAN 12 HOURS TO GET HERE?
Well, yeah. Have a look at the radar in Memphis as of 9PM tonight (Wednesday):
WHAT TO EXPECT
The Storm Prediction Center thinks there is a 30% of a severe weather event (winds > 58mph, and/or 1″ hail, and/or a tornado) happening within 25 miles of you.
This afternoon our NWS said:
- damaging winds main threat.
- isolated tornadoes possible.
- we do not expect a full blown severe weather outbreak or widespread damage.
- the storms may be more intense east of I-65, which would be after they pass by us.
Later this afternoon, our NWS added:
EXPECT TO SEE CONVECTION FIRE DOWN THROUGH ARKANSAS SHORTLY AND BEGIN TO WORK SLOWLY EASTWARD AND BE ALIGNED ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AROUND MIDNIGHT OR 1 AM CDT. LINE WILL WORK EAST IN THE OVERNIGHT AND BE ALONG THE TENNESSEE RIVER BY 7 AM CDT WHILE WEAKENING. AM EXPECTING THE LINE TO REGENERATE OVER CENTRAL AREAS OF THE MID STATE LATE MORNING INTO THE AFTERNOON ON THURSDAY AND PROGRESS SLOWLY EASTWARD THROUGH THE AFTERNOON AND INTO THE EVENING. A FEW STORMS COULD BE SEVERE MAINLY EAST OF INTERSTATE 65 WITH MAIN THREAT BEING DAMAGING WINDS AND LARGE HAIL. BRIEF SPIN UPS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE.
Thursday Storms: ETA + Hail? Damaging Winds & Tornadoes? Heavy Rain?
ETA
This afternoon our NWS updated its ETA. Storms are forecast to arrive between 8am and noon Thursday.
Hail?
Probably not much, if any. Our NWS:
WHILE THE FRONTAL SYSTEM TRAVERSES WESTERN TN AND APPROACHES MIDDLE TN ...SREF SEVERE PARAMETERS...CONVECTIVE AVAILABLE POTENTIAL ENERGY MORE THAN ANYTHING...PLUMMETS WITHOUT DAYTIME HEATING. THIS SEEMS TO BE A SHARED OPINION ACROSS THE MODELS. THIS WOULD CALM THE FEARS OF MANY IN THE WAY OF HAIL.