Muggy air has returned. Dry today, but rain chances on the way back too.
It's another partly sunny and very warm day across the Tennessee Valley, but unlike the last few days, the tropical moisture has returned. Dewpoints are sitting in the upper 60s to as high as the mid 70s areawide, and when combined with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s, it definitely feels a lot different outside than it has the past few days.
We look to stay dry for the rest of today and tonight. The other not so good news is that with the moisture in place, rain chances begin to return too, and that happens as early as Friday. As early as the morning hours, we may have a stray shower or two over parts of the area. By afternoon, we expect a few isolated hit-or-miss type thunderstorms to develop over a few parts of the area. The better rain chances will be to our west for Friday, but it sure looks like there may be one or two afternoon storms across southern Tennessee or north Alabama too.
As we head into the weekend and early next week, a cold front will drop down from the Midwest and wash out near the area. Rain chances gradually but steadily increase through the weekend. Rain chances really ramp up as we head into much of next week. It won't be an all day rain on any particular day, but widespread showers and thunderstorms are a pretty decent bet.
The good news is that with the increase in clouds and rain chances, temperatures won't be able to soar as high as they often can in the afternoon this time of year. It looks like we will generally stay in the 84 to 90 degree range during the afternoon for the next five to seven days. However, with the humidity back, we're not able to cool nearly as efficiently overnight. Lows look to bottom out only in the upper 60s and lower 70s. If you're headed down to the beach this weekend, you aren't going to escape rain chances there either. Friday through Sunday, expect a mix of sun and clouds each day. Scattered showers and thunderstorms will be possible each day as well, as you would expect this time of year. Afternoon highs look to top out each day near the mid 80s.
The tropical wave that we had been watching that was approaching the Caribbean has gotten sheared apart and no longer really looks like a threat. We are watching a more vigorous wave that has rolled off the coast of Africa out in the eastern Atlantic. Despite it being a bit early in the season for this to happen, this wave looks much more organized already and is at a fairly low latitude. That means that we will have to watch it in the coming days as it heads westward, and models and ensemble guidance do show increasing potential for it to develop into a tropical system over the next several days. Having said that, it is WAY far out in the Atlantic, and there is plenty of time to watch it over the coming days to see if it may try to pose some type of threat (or not) to the United States down the road.