Scattered storms today, but drier the next few days.
Scattered showers and storms are working southward through southern middle Tennessee into north Alabama this afternoon. This is ahead of a weak cold front that will bring noticeable weather changes to the Tennessee Valley starting tomorrow. Meanwhile, outside of the storms, we are partly sunny this afternoon. Temperatures are into the mid 80s where we have dodged the rain so far, but thunderstorms are cooling off some areas into the 70s.
Expect these showers and thunderstorms to become more numerous over north Alabama as we continue to work through the afternoon, while drier air will continue to gradually filter into middle Tennessee, bringing an end to the rain by the evening. High temperatures away from storms today will be in the mid to upper 80s. Thunderstorms end for everyone overnight, with drier air moving in and allowing morning lows for Friday morning to creep down into the mid to upper 60s.
This rain has definitely been welcome news, with many areas getting anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain over the past 7 days. There have been a few spots with less, but a large part of our viewing area has eroded the rainfall deficits from the last 30 days. The latest drought monitor update does not yet include the heavy rain we've seen the past couple of days. That will happen on next Thursday's update. That should remove more of northwest Alabama from drought conditions. However, the areas of southwest Tennessee and northeast Mississippi have longer term rainfall deficits that will take a while longer to recover.
Rain chances will take a break Friday through the weekend as dry air behind the cold front settles in temporarily. This will allow morning lows to get down as low as the lower 60s this weekend! Daytime highs will still range from the mid 80s to near 90 degrees, but even that is a few degrees below our seasonal averages for the middle of August. By early next week, another frontal boundary will approach, and the chance of scattered showers and storms will return.