If you've got outdoor plans this weekend, I've got some pretty good news. Overall, the weather across Southern Middle Tennessee looks GREAT! We're heading into a very quiet stretch with plenty of sunshine, very little chance for rain and humidity that should remain fairly manageable through much of the weekend. Saturday, in particular, looks like one of those late-August days where it's certainly warm, but it shouldn't feel nearly as oppressive as some of the heat we've dealt with this month.

I hope everyone enjoyed our little break from the worst of the summer heat, because Mother Nature is apparently ready to turn the thermostat back up. After several days of relatively seasonable late-August temperatures, the large-scale weather pattern is getting ready to change again. An upper-level ridge of high pressure currently centered farther west will gradually expand eastward over the next several days. As it does, our temperatures will begin a steady climb through the weekend and into next week.

If the weather cooperates Thursday night, we're going to have a pretty cool show in the sky over Southern Middle Tennessee. A deep partial lunar eclipse will occur Thursday night into early Friday morning, and this one is going to come VERY close to being a total lunar eclipse. At its peak, more than 96% of the Moon's surface will be inside Earth's dark central shadow, leaving only a tiny sliver of the Moon directly illuminated by the Sun. NASA confirms the August 27-28 eclipse will be visible across much of the Americas, along with portions of Europe and Africa.

I know what you're thinking. It's August 25th, temperatures are still pushing toward 90°, and we're already talking about the first FREEZE and SNOW? Don't worry—I'm not forecasting either one anytime soon. But we're approaching the time of year when the days begin getting noticeably shorter, cooler nights become more common, and questions about fall and winter start showing up in my inbox. So today I thought we'd look at the climatology and answer two of those questions: When do we normally see our first freeze, and when does the first snow usually show up?

If you've followed Southern Tennessee Weather for very long, you've probably noticed that I sometimes treat the Cumberland Plateau almost like its own little weather world. It can be near 90° in Winchester while Monteagle is several degrees cooler. Most of Southern Middle Tennessee can be dry while showers keep trying to bubble up around Grundy County. And during the winter, you can leave lower elevations with plain rain only to find a completely different situation after climbing Monteagle. 😂

If you've followed my forecasts for any length of time, you've probably heard me talk about dew points—especially during the summer. I'll say dew points are in the 70s and it's miserable outside, or I'll get excited when a front knocks them down into the 50s and 60s. But what the heck is a dew point in the first place? Why do meteorologists care so much about it? And if your weather app already tells you the relative humidity is 65%, why do we need ANOTHER number to tell us how much moisture is in the air?

The complex of showers and thunderstorms that moved through parts of Southern Middle Tennessee this morning has moved out, and skies have been clearing from west to east behind it. That sunshine is important. Temperatures are rebounding, the air remains plenty humid, and leftover boundaries from this morning's storms are hanging around the region. Those boundaries can act like little "sparks" for new thunderstorm development once the atmosphere becomes unstable enough again.

We’re still sweating through August, football season is just getting underway, and the first real taste of fall is still several weeks away. So talking about tornadoes and severe thunderstorms may seem a little premature. But here in Southern Middle Tennessee, severe weather isn’t something we only have to think about during the spring.

We’re bringing back our Weather Folklore series today, and this one may be about as Southern Appalachian as it gets. You’ve probably heard somebody say it before: Take a look at the woolly worm. It’ll tell you what kind of winter we’re going to have. According to the old saying, a woolly worm with lots of black means you’d better get ready for a long, cold, snowy winter. A wider brown stripe through the middle supposedly means winter will be on the milder side. Some versions of the folklore get even more specific, claiming the location of those black bands can tell you when the worst part of winter will arrive.

We’ve spent a LOT of time talking about the Heat Index this week—and for good reason. When the thermometer is pushing the upper 90s and the humidity is thick enough to wear, knowing how hot it actually feels to your body becomes pretty important. But there’s another heat measurement you may start hearing more about, especially if you have kids playing sports, work outside, coach athletics, exercise outdoors or simply spend a lot of time in the summer sun.

We're taking a one-day break from our Weather Folklore series because there's another weather question I get asked ALL THE TIME: “Elijah, does it seem like weather is getting more intense?” Usually it comes after a major tornado, a flash flood, a hurricane, a ridiculous heat wave, or one of those videos on Facebook where somebody's trampoline is achieving low-Earth orbit. Even after the lightning storms on Tuesday night, I had many people reach out and say this is the “worst” lightning storm they’ve ever seen.

Yesterday we cracked open persimmon seeds to see if they could tell us what winter has in store. Today, we're sticking with the winter weather theme—mostly because talking about snow is about the only way I can mentally escape the sauna outside right now. 😂 This piece of folklore is one I've heard plenty of times after a good Southern snow: “If snow stays on the ground for several days, it's waiting on another one.”

We're going from sunshowers to something a little more seasonal in today's edition of Weather Folklore. And considering we're currently sweating through heat index values above 100 degrees, talking about snow and bitter cold honestly doesn't sound half bad. 😂 Today's folklore involves a fruit you can find growing wild across much of our region: the persimmon.

According to an old Appalachian and Ozark tradition, you can crack open the seed of a locally grown persimmon and find a tiny shape inside that supposedly reveals what Mother Nature has planned for the upcoming winter.

We've made it through several days of our Weather Folklore series, and today's saying is a perfect example of how a little bit of real meteorology can turn into a much bigger prediction once it's been passed down through generations. You've probably experienced this before: It's a hot summer afternoon, the sun is shining brightly, and suddenly... it's raining. Then somebody says: "If it rains while the sun is shining, it'll rain at the same time tomorrow."

I've heard several variations of this one over the years, but they all make essentially the same prediction. A sunshower today means you can expect another shower at about the same time the following day. But can one sunshower really predict tomorrow's weather down to the hour?

One of the things I've enjoyed most about this new Weather Folklore series is discovering that not every old weather saying is completely made up. Some have surprising scientific explanations, while others simply don't hold up when you compare them against decades of weather records. Today's saying is one I've heard countless times across Tennessee: "If it rains on the first day of the month, it'll rain 15 days out of that month."

We've all heard them. Those old weather sayings that have been passed down from parents, grandparents, and generations before them. Some have a surprising amount of science behind them, while others are little more than coincidence wrapped in a catchy phrase. That's exactly what this Weather Folklore series is all about.

Today's saying is perhaps one of the oldest (and one of the most quoted) weather proverbs in history: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning."

Yesterday we kicked off our new Weather Folklore mini-series by taking a look at one of Tennessee's oldest weather sayings: August fog means winter snow. Today, we're tackling another belief that's probably just as familiar. Have you ever been sitting on the porch during a warm summer evening when you notice flashes of lightning off in the distance—but you never hear any thunder?

Over the next several days, we're launching a new mini-series here on the STN Weather Blog called Weather Folklore. For generations, people have looked to nature for clues about what the weather might do next. From woolly worms and persimmon seeds to halos around the moon and red sunsets, nearly every community has its own collection of weather sayings that have been passed down through the years.

After several weeks of tracking heat advisories, severe weather threats, and flooding concerns, this week's forecast is refreshingly quiet. That doesn't mean we're headed into a completely dry stretch (this is still August in Tennessee) but there simply aren't any major weather systems expected to bring widespread hazardous weather over the next seven days.

If you're making weekend plans, Saturday is the day you'll want to keep a close eye on the forecast. Whether it's a ballgame, a cookout, a trip to the lake, or simply mowing the yard, you'll want to have a backup plan ready. While the entire weekend won't be a washout, Saturday is expected to bring the highest coverage of showers and thunderstorms we've seen in several days.