The National Weather Service has now extended the flash flood watches eastward to include Cookeville and Livingston. These flood watches run through Friday morning. Current radar shows that we have more rain developing to our south, moving north. The heaviest rain will fall west of Nashville with Harvey. Folks in Memphis are being asked to leave work early if they can, due to the potential for up to 8-10 inches or rain moving in on them this evening and overnight. Thankfully, we won’t see anything like that here.
I’ve circled an area in white, which is what we have to expect the rest of the afternoon and evening. So far, these storms have struggled to reach severe limits. The storms circled in red are what we have to watch out for later this evening and overnight. They would pose the greatest threat for wind damage. Notice all the tornado warnings around Memphis. That activity will stay in West TN.
Current watches and severe weather threat areas are shown below. A tornado watch has been issued for the yellow shaded counties until 8:00pm. We are right on the edge of the greatest tornado threat, so it needs to be watched closely.
Also, the Hurricane Center just identified Hurricane Irma in the eastern Atlantic. The storm has exploded from a weak tropical storm to a cat 2 hurricane. Rapid intensification is expected to continue and Irma is expected to become a major hurricane by this evening. She is no threat to land at this time, nor will she be for the next week or so. This is one of the fastest developing tropical systems many of us have ever seen. It’s definitely one to watch. Look at that eye!
Let me know if you have any questions!