I do have a bit of good news at this hour. The cold front has sped up and that has narrowed the window of opportunity for severe weather in our area. Thus, the Storm Prediction Center has lowered us back to the slight risk. The enhanced risk is now to our east, across East TN. Their threat is much higher than ours today. That means my level-of-concern will stay where I’ve had it for the past few days.
A few breaks in the clouds are helping destabilize our atmosphere. Guidance continues to show a surface environment very favorable for severe thunderstorms this afternoon. While the atmospheric support above isn’t as favorable, it is favorable enough for us to be weather-aware.
The main threat from any storm that develops will be damaging, straight-line winds. An isolated tornado cannot be ruled out.
We need to be weather-aware beginning at noon and we need to stay weather-aware until 6:00, or until I give the ALL-Clear. I still think the main threat timeframe will be 2:00-5:00.
As you all know with our daytime events, the more sun we get the more unstable the atmosphere will become. Let’s hope for lots of clouds.
The current satellite shows breaks in the clouds across Middle TN, which increases my concern a bit.
Short term radar simulation shows thunderstorms breaking out across Middle TN as we go into the afternoon. This simulation begins at 1:00 pm and then moves in one-hour increments. Storms should be out of our area by 6:00 pm (if not sooner).
At this time all is clear across the state, as far as storms are concerned. That will likely change over the coming hours.
I’ll update again as needed.
For those who don’t know, many of the schools in our area are letting out early due to weather.
