Great Weather Today, Thunderstorms Not Too Far Away

Satellite imagery early this Tuesday morning shows clear skies across the area. The closest rain to our area this morning is hundreds of miles away, with the complex of storms up over the Great Lakes States. Those thunderstorms will stay off to our north and will not bother our weather here locally. We may see a little bit in the way of high clouds from them, however, as well as a few high clouds in association with deepening moisture to our southeast. Despite that, we expect mostly sunny skies once again across the Tennessee Valley for our Tuesday with afternoon highs generally ranging from 86 to 89 degrees, and we can't rule out a 90 degree reading here and there. Rich low-level moisture has not yet made its full return to the area; so, these warm temperatures won't feel too bad out there, and our warm temperatures are actually very near normal for this time of year. Our average high temperature for the first half of September in the area usually ranges from 85 to 90 degrees. We are firmly within that range this September 8th.

Looking nationally, there are big changes in the weather ongoing to our north. We have a major storm system getting its act together as energy dives into the Rockies from Canada. This will be the catalyst for a major snowstorm starting today in Wyoming and Colorado, and then spreading southward into New Mexico tomorrow and into Thursday and out into the Northern High Plains through the latter half of the week as well. This is also in association with that pesky cold front that the models had been advertising for our area later this week. This disturbance will cut off into a closed upper low out west this week before weakening and ejecting out into the Great Lakes later in the week. This means that we stay under weak ridging from the subtropical high off to our east, with muggy air and thunderstorm chances returning the second half of the week. Thunderstorm chances become more elevated by the weekend as the front approaches to our north but it stalls and washes out before fully getting here.

Global models aren't showing any believable changes to our overall weather across the area for the next 7 to maybe 10 days. The front washing out to our north means we get stuck in the warm and soupy air across the Tennessee Valley for the foreseeable future. Temperatures there on the Euro are probably a couple of degrees too warm on Tuesday, but it does a good job depicting the overall idea for the next 7 to 10 days... warm weather stays, with elevated thunderstorm chances returning, especially for this weekend.