Drought conditions continue across the Tennessee Valley, despite the rainfall at the end of the past week. All of the Tennessee Valley is officially ranked in “Moderate” drought conditions. It is possible that some of the areas with rain totals over 1.5″ from the event last week could step down to “Abnormally Dry” on the update that comes out Thursday, but it’s not a guarantee. In the larger scope of things, the higher rainfall totals with last week’s system stayed to our south, and while we did get a good soaking that has improved top layer soil moisture a little bit, we’re still running anywhere from 40-60% of what is considered normal rainfall for the past 30 calendar days, with only a few areas from Iuka to the Shoals to Lawrenceburg to Lewisburg and then another area around Red Bay to Russellville in the 65-80% of what is normal range. Long-term rainfall deficits still aren’t bad at face value, but this is still mainly driven by the very wet first half of 2025. Once we shift deeper into this year to where those rain totals from last year start falling off the ledger for this count, those numbers will start to go downhill unless we start seeing significant rainfall soon.
The bad news is that we don’t have big rain in the forecast in the foreseeable future. We DO have the decent chance of a few showers on Wednesday, and the chance of a few more Friday night into Saturday. Both events may actually transition over to some light flurries at their ends. But it doesn’t look like there’s going to be much in the way of moisture content. The NWS rainfall forecast for the next 7 days is below a quarter inch everywhere, with many folks closer to a tenth of an inch. The NWS Climate Prediction Center’s 6-10 Day Precipitation Outlook is highlighting near to below average precipitation from January 19th to 23rd. It doesn’t mean there won’t be any, but it’s more likely that it will run below average for what is normal for that time than above average. Their 8-14 Day outlook for January 21st through 27th DOES hint at maybe a more active pattern, with some bit of confidence of above average precipitation chances for the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys up into the Ohio Valley. Confidence isn’t overly high just yet, but those percentages COULD increase as we get closer. We’ll see. The main takeaway is that even though there are a few shower chances in the future, the rain we had last week was helpful but not enough, and drought conditions will continue for now!
