Issued June 21, 2026
Monday will be a Meteorologist Mark Weather Alert Day for the risk for severe storms.
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MM’s Forecast Update for the Plateau
The radar has been very active today to our northwest. The energy for those storms has spared us any storms today. That activity is associated with a storm system that will push our way over the next 24 hours, bringing an increased risk for rain and storms. Some of the activity you see on this evening’s radar (seen below) will push our way overnight. It will weaken as it does so. This should give us some showers in the morning, but we should steer clear of any severe storm threats. I will continue to monitor that closely.
Breaking down the hourly forecast for tomorrow, I highlighted in orange the hours of greatest concern for any severe storms. As you can see, rain chances remain elevated all day. If morning showers and clouds hang around, instability will be more limited in the afternoon, which will reduce our severe storm threat.
I have increased our tornado threat once again. It’s still low, but not zero. Data suggests that there could be enough shear to give us a spin-up with a stronger storm. Damaging straight-line winds and localized flash flooding remain the greatest threat with any stronger storm.
MM’s Analysis…for those who want to know a bit more.
The weather map for Monday afternoon shows an area of low pressure centered over the Ohio Valley with a cold front extended southwestward from that low. As that front runs into our warm and humid air from the Gulf, showers and storms will develop. That front will slowly move across the area. The front eventually stalls out across the Deep South by Tuesday afternoon.
The above map shows you what’s at the surface, but the atmosphere high above us matters just as much as surface features. If we go alllll the way up to 30,000 feet into the atmosphere tomorrow afternoon, we see a disturbance in that flow aloft (circled). Anytime you see lines bend on pressure charts, we generally call that a “disturbance”. These disturbances encourage the air to rise, which encourages storms to form.
Something new with today’s data is the increase, however subtle, in vorticity for Monday. Vorticity is a measure of how air spins as it rises to form storms. In Tennessee, we see just enough vorticity for it to be a bit more concerning that the spinning air ingested by updrafts Monday afternoon could lead to enough spinning for a tornado. We’ll monitor this with tonight and tomorrow morning’s data to see if this increases or decreases.
StormNet is a product that has been improving for severe weather forecasting. It takes several factors into consideration to highlight areas that might have a tornado risk. Tomorrow’s threat for our region shows up quite subtly, but it has trended up in today’s guidance. We’ll see what this looks like in the morning, as well. The blue dot indicates where the plateau is.
As always, I’ll have a full update in the morning. You all take care, have a pleasant evening, and keep it right here with Meteorologist Mark for all the latest on the weather of the Cumberland Plateau!
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