Gloomy. Dreary. Rainy. Stormy. Our wet weather pattern continues.
This has felt like the longest week ever, and the weather is undoubtedly to blame. We've got another gross day today, with more showers and maybe a few thunderstorms early Friday morning. For the rest of today, I can't rule out a few showers but more widespread rain moves in overnight. You'll probably want your umbrella on hand tomorrow morning.
The good news about tomorrow morning's rain chance, is that we clear out for Friday evening. No rain, but clouds will likely stick around because while we'll be getting a break, more rain is moving in Saturday.
Saturday afternoon and evening rain chances look to be fairly widespread. Again, I can't rule out a few thunderstorms within the rain showers, but no severe weather is expected. Rain showers will continue into the evening and overnight hours. Sunday is looking mainly dry, but I can't completely rule out a shower or two. That being said, most of you won't see a drop of rain Sunday or Monday. If we're lucky, we might even see some sunshine!
The next storm system we're watching will arrive sometime mid-week and will bring a good chance for showers and thunderstorms. We're keeping a close eye on atmospheric conditions, to determine whether sufficient ingredients for strong to severe storms will come into play. For now, we can confidently say we can expect widespread showers and storms, but we are going to need a little bit more model consistency before flagging a potential severe weather threat. Our eyes are peeled.
Well, it's been raining a lot lately. If you'll remember just a mere few months ago, we went weeks without rain. That certainly heightened our drought situation, but this recent rainfall has alleviated drought conditions throughout the entire viewing area. To put it simply, each respective area dropped a respective category. If you're looking at this drought map and then looking at the puddles your yard, you might be confused. The drought monitor takes into account long-term effects and not short-term soil moisture levels. Think the analogy between weather and climate. Weather is day-to-day, while climate is longer-term averages of meteorological conditions. Overall, this new drought map is great news, and even more rain is on the way, as depicted by the Climate Prediction Center (above). So, if you haven't gotten used to the wet weather this week, you better! I want to look ahead to another trend, mid-
month temperatures. Our temps here recently have been above average. That's going to change once we get closer to Christmas. You can see the CPC's temperature outlook for December 16-22 placing the Tennessee Valley a 50-60% chance of experiencing below average temperatures.
Our 7 day forecast looks quite gloomy and quite mild. We'll have above average temps for several days, along with several rainy days. We may have to pop rain chances back up for Sunday but for now I'll just call it a stray chance. Again, we're keeping an eye on the middle of next week for a chance at an organized thunderstorm system, will keep you updated!
