Today – High 86
A cold front has pushed through, ushering in cooler, drier air from the north. Aaaahhhh, sweet, wonderful relief.
Less humidity, with only a very slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Any storms that develop will be on the weaker side of things. Nothing to worry about.
Today – High 90, Maybe a Thunderstorm or Two
The MCS (Mesoscale Convective System, or large thunderstorm cluster) we were concerned about last night has missed us completely. It arrived this morning in Memphis on its way into Mississippi and Alabama. It produced a cool shelf cloud:
Today – High 95
It’s been quite humid, with heat indices reaching 100 today. You can all feel it in the air, and that is going to be the energy/fuel big storms tomorrow will be using — if they reach us tomorrow morning.
The 8 p.m. update from the Storm Prediction Center has arrived. They’ve put us within the following probabilities of “x” happening within 25 miles of you tonight:
Damaging Winds (58 mph or more): 30%. Notice we’re in the bullseye.
The 3 p.m. update from the Storm Prediction Center was largely unchanged for us. The probabilities of “x” happening within 25 miles of you today:
Afternoon thunderstorms (previously advertised as “Round 1”) haven’t developed as predicted by weather models, likely due to a “cap” up in the atmosphere preventing a large amount of thunderstorm energy from being released. Also limiting afternoon thunderstorms has been some “mixing,” causing drier dewpoints to come on down . . .
The lunchtime outlook from the Storm Prediction Center says a mesoscale convective system (“MCS” – a bunch of thunderstorms moving together) “is expected to propagate southeastward into/through the central/southern Appalachians and Tennessee Valley by late evening.” That’s us!
Today we’ll feel high humidity and temps topping out in the low 90s, but the main concern is the possibility of severe weather this afternoon and tonight.
Before I dive into the weather models, remember: weather models are useful tools for guidance. They are not Gospel. They are often off by hours, or “wrong” altogether.
This Afternoon & Tonight – Still Might Storm
We’ve already hit 90 today. We may hit 91. Keep in mind all these temps are measured in the shade.
The dew point has remained around a miserable 70. Heat indices should approach 95.
Today – High 91; Pop-Up Thunderstorms
Keep the umbrella handy. Pop up thunderstorms are moving all over the place this afternoon, and more storms later can’t be ruled out. Don’t mess with these storms, which are distributing lightning in and around them.
Yeah, this was also my experience.
WARNING: Some weather stuff is explained, below. If you don’t care about learning no science and just need your forecast for the next three days, I wholly respect that, here you go: