This is summer, right?

MAIN THREATS

Nothing significant

SUMMARY

Lately, each time I put together the five-day outlook above, I have to remind myself that this is July. You sure wouldn’t know it by looking at our weather lately.

For today, we will dodge a shower or storm. I think most of us will stay dry. This chance of rain today is from a cold front that will be passing through. Earlier in the week, this front looked like it would be more active for us, but that action is well to our north and east (see discussion for more details).

By Monday, another system drops in and that will bring a very good chance of showers and storms. Those rain chances will linger with us each day next week. As of now, widespread severe weather is not expected. Heavy rainfall, esp on Tuesday, may be an issue. As always, I’ll keep an eye on that.

For those of you planning on going to the 127 Yard Sales, the forecast looks iffy at this point. I think there will be scattered storms each day, mainly in the afternoons/evenings, but temperatures will be average. In other words, it may be comfortable temperature-wise, but you may have to dodge a few storms. I’d recommend hitting the yard sales early in the mornings.

Starting Monday, I’ll have a separate section for yard sale weather, including the forecast along the 690-mile route.

DISCUSSION 

We really did get lucky with this cold front that is passing through today. The Northeast U.S. will face the brunt of this system. They are expecting heavy rainfall, hail, high winds, and isolated tornadoes. Earlier this week, it looked like all of that would be on us.

More severe weather is expected well to our west today, as well, back over toward Wyoming, Kansas, and Colorado. Hail to ping pong ball size and isolated tornadoes are possible out there.

These pics were shared by Shane Linke, from Colorado yesterday. He was out biking and got caught in the storm. Need less to say, he pedaled home a lot faster than he pedaled away from home! ha

 

As for us, next week’s system is being a big tricky on timing. It looks like all of Sunday may stay dry now and that the earliest we may see rain would be Monday morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if later data shows it coming in later in the day, but we’ll see how that goes. By Tuesday, we should all see rain. If I had to forecast a rainfall amount at this point, I’d say we’ll all end up with at least an inch of rain by Wednesday morning.

TROPICS

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

RECORDS

Nashville set a record high for July, when they hit 107 degrees during the afternoon of July 27, 1952. Clarksville, located just northwest of Nashville, hit 110 degrees.

On this day in 1943, Lieutenant Ralph O’Hair and Colonel Duckworth were the first to fly into a hurricane. On a whim, they flew into the storm flying a single engine AT-6. This began regular flights into hurricanes by the Air Force.

NEWS

The Fentress Courier and Livingston Enterprise printed by story on “Heat” Lightning this week. I’ll share it with you all here.

In grade school I learned how to figure out how far away lightning is. As soon as you see a lightning flash, start counting the seconds. Then, you divide the number of seconds you count before the thunder arrives by five. That will tell you how many miles away a storm is.

There are times when the storm is too far away for you to hear the thunder. Light travels faster than sound, so sometimes at night we see lightning flash but we can’t hear the thunder.

One of my fondest memories of watching storms with my grandfather was when we were out on the back porch late one evening and I saw a distant lightning flash. My grandpa said, “That was heat lightning.”

When I was in meteorology school I recall one of my professors laughing at the notion of “heat lightning.” He said there was no such thing. I was baffled. Grandpa had explained to me that the term “heat lightning” was a phrase folks came up with to describe lightning on a hot summer night that was too far away to hear the thunder. It was just distant lightning.

My professor explained that some folks mistakenly think that heat lightning is caused by the heat of the night, which simply isn’t possible.

Lightning is produced by storms, as different charges generate enough of a difference to ignite a spark. Heat lightning is just a phrase for lightning in a thunderstorm that is too far away for us to hear the thunder.

It is always interesting to hear how different people interpret weather phrases, whether those phrases are carried down from our grandparents, or are created in today’s social media.

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You all have a great day and a wonderful weekend!