We've finally made it to Friday, and if you've got outdoor plans this weekend, Saturday is definitely the day you'll want to keep a closer eye on the radar. A very humid atmosphere combined with a weak frontal boundary and a couple of disturbances moving through the region will give us our best opportunity for meaningful rainfall in quite some time today and Saturday. That's certainly welcome news considering the expanding dry conditions we talked about in yesterday's Drought Monitor update. Unfortunately, Mother Nature may once again deliver some of that rain a little too efficiently.

Yesterday, we talked about what makes a truly beneficial soaking rain and why not all rainfall is created equal. Today, we have a brand-new update from the U.S. Drought Monitor, and unfortunately, our recent stretch of hot and mostly dry weather is beginning to show up more clearly across Southern Middle Tennessee. That may seem a little strange considering how wet much of this summer has been. We certainly haven't spent the entire season begging for rain. In fact, there have been plenty of times this summer when we probably would've preferred Mother Nature turn the faucet OFF for a little while.

If you’ve been following Southern Tennessee Weather over the past few days, you know we’ve started talking more about our recent dry stretch. Despite what was a pretty wet summer overall, rainfall has become much harder to come by lately. Most of Southern Middle Tennessee is now running roughly 1–2 inches below normal over the past 30 days, with some localized areas doing a little better thanks to the scattered thunderstorms we’ve seen recently.

We may still be dealing with temperatures in the 90s across Southern Middle Tennessee, but believe it or not, one of my favorite times of the year is getting closer. Over the next several weeks, the seemingly endless sea of green across Tennessee will gradually begin trading places with shades of yellow, orange, red and eventually brown. Of course, the leaves don't particularly care that it still feels like July outside. The process that eventually produces our fall colors is already being influenced by something that has been changing every single day since the beginning of summer: daylight.

After the storms we experienced across parts of Southern Middle Tennessee over the weekend, I saw a familiar question pop up again: “Was that a tornado?”

It's an understandable question. When a thunderstorm produces winds strong enough to snap trees, damage buildings, toss debris and send rain blowing sideways, our minds naturally jump to tornadoes. It can become even more confusing when the wind or rain appears to be swirling, changing direction or wrapping around buildings and trees. But damaging wind does NOT automatically mean a tornado occurred, and seeing something swirl during a thunderstorm doesn't necessarily mean you're witnessing tornado-like rotation.

We have finally made it to the weekend, but unfortunately, Mother Nature did not get the memo that we're now several days into meteorological fall. Another very hot and humid afternoon is underway across Southern Middle Tennessee, and the heat will remain the biggest weather story through Saturday. There will also be opportunities for a few showers and thunderstorms, particularly Saturday afternoon and evening, but I certainly wouldn't call this weekend a washout.

If you grew up around farms in Tennessee, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard this one before. You’re driving down the road, you look over at a pasture and notice several cows lying down. Somebody in the car inevitably says, “Well, looks like rain is coming.” The idea that cows lie down before rain has been passed along for generations. There are several explanations people give for it, too. Some say cattle can sense falling atmospheric pressure. Others say increasing humidity makes them uncomfortable. And then there’s my personal favorite: cows supposedly lie down before a storm because they’re trying to “save themselves a dry patch of grass.”

We’re in the middle of a significant late-summer heat wave across Southern Middle Tennessee, and temperatures are making a run at a number that always gets people’s attention: 100 degrees. We routinely reach the middle and upper 90s during our hottest stretches of summer. Add Tennessee humidity, and it can easily FEEL like 105-110° outside. But getting the actual air temperature to officially reach 100° is surprisingly difficult around here.

When we talk about a heat wave, almost all of the attention naturally goes toward the biggest numbers. How hot will the afternoon temperature get? Will we reach 100°? How high will the Heat Index climb? Are we going to see 105° or 110° “feels-like” temperatures? Those are obviously important questions, especially with another significant stretch of heat building across Southern Middle Tennessee this week. But there's another number meteorologists watch closely during prolonged heat that doesn't receive nearly as much attention: How cool does it get at night?

Tomorrow is September 1st. Pumpkin spice is everywhere, football is back, the days are getting shorter, and meteorologists will officially turn the calendar from summer to fall. Meanwhile, Mother Nature looked at the calendar and said, “That’s cute.” 😂

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.