Hot and a few storms today. Dry for the work week ahead. Watching the Gulf carefully.
We are already tracking a couple of thunderstorms over middle Tennessee early this morning in this warm and muggy air mass across the Valley. Temperatures this morning are in the upper 60s and lower 70s areawide, with dewpoints right there as well. It will be another hot and humid day today, with afternoon highs in the upper 80s and lower 90s. When the dewpoints in the 70s are factored in, heat index values this afternoon will once again top out between 95 and 100 degrees across a large part of the local area.
Scattered thunderstorms will also develop as we head through the day and then move southward across the area. We do not have a formal severe weather risk in place, but similar to yesterday, one or two storms may produce gusty winds and heavy rain. A few stray storms may linger into the late evening before diminishing overnight.
The good news is that rain chances take a big back seat as we head into the new week ahead. We look to be dry and mostly sunny to to partly cloudy with temperatures in the afternoons dropping back into the low to mid 80s and morning lows back into the upper 50s and lower 60s as we head deeper into the week and drier air moves in. It's certainly going to be a welcome break from the soupy air mass we have had the past week!
As we head through the week, we will be carefully watching this tropical disturbance in the Bay of Campeche and western Gulf of Mexico though. There is an increasing potential that this may possibly develop into a tropical depression or tropical storm (some intensity models even try to take it toward minimal hurricane intensity, but it's much too soon for that type of speculation). The overall pattern suggests a general northward motion should be expected, in association with a weakness over the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys between high pressure off the Southeast coast of the United States and high pressure that will also be situated over the Plains and Rockies. It's much too soon to try to guess at who might be impacted, if the system even develops, but interests from the Texas coast all the way around to the Florida panhandle will want to watch this system carefully as we head through this coming week.