After a pleasant morning, with lows in the lower 60s, we’re heating up fast out there, folks! Highs today will reach for 90, but will likely fall short by a degree or two. I expect much of the same tomorrow. I think Friday will be our hottest day, with many areas hitting 90-92 degrees. And we can never completely rule out a rogue t-storm in this heat and humidity. I think you’re going to really notice that humidity kicking in by this afternoon. And it will be even worse tomorrow and Friday. By Saturday, we’ll get a few more clouds around as this high pressure begins to break down. That will lead to a few more storms in the afternoon. We should all see a storm by Monday, as both Sunday and Monday will give us about 50% chances of t-storms. That will be the result of a cold front that will be moving through. That front will bring lower humidity by the middle of next week!
I saw something cool in weather news that some of you may be interested in. The NWS is experimenting with a new product that may give us much more time to prepare for severe weather. The product was tested in Oklahoma this past spring and it was very successful. One town had 90 mins to prepare for a tornado! The way it would work is that it relies on high resolution model data that can tell us where and when storms are going to fire off. We use this model ALL THE TIME storm chasing and it’s very reliable. It only predicts out for several hours at a time, whereas other models will predict out to a week or more. Based on this high resolution model data, a special weather statement would be issued that would tell you that there is a high probability of tornadoes in your neighborhood. For instance, we get our tornadoes from the southwest (usually). If the model predicts supercells in southern Middle TN that will track northeastward, and these supercells are to form at 2:00 p.m., then a special weather statement would be issued for Crossville that would warn of an especially high risk for tornadoes by 5:00 p.m. They plan to use these first for public events, such as football games, where thousands of people all gather in one spot.
It’ll be interesting to see how this goes! Below is a graphic of what the new warnings would look like.
