After a some nice tastes of Spring over the last couple of weeks, the big story for the upcoming week is that of our well-advertised heavy rain chances that begin in earnest Tuesday, and last perhaps as late as into the next Weekend. Shown here on the left is one tool we use to see what our friends at the National Weather Service/Weather Prediction Center think about the pattern, and they seem to be in agreement about our rain chances, as highlighted by their drawn region indicating flooding and heavy rain possibilities over much the Southeast and into the Tennessee Valley.
Let’s take a look at when we can expect that rain to begin, and what kind of totals we are looking at.
First and foremost, we can take a look at the core handful of systems that are responsible for these flooding chances into the midweek. To start, we see our first big system in the area on Tuesday – to our north, our midwestern friends have wintry precipitation to work with, and to our south, they have a somewhat stormier pattern, which puts us right in the “rain shield”, wherein all day heavy rainfall is expected, beginning in the early-mid morning hours of Tuesday. Right off the bat, we can expect a solid couple of inches widespread with this initial Tuesday push, but it goes without saying, this isn’t the only one on tap.
The very next day, we’re greeted with what you could perhaps call “round 2”: especially through the second half of the day, though we’re not totally dry in the first half. For that 2nd half of the day Wednesday, however, we see the big push of another system that is connected by a front to the Tuesday system drape itself over the Tennessee Valley, providing yet another few-several inches of rainfall across the area. By the time this system begins to push out thru Thursday, the general consensus is that we’ll already by this point have picked up the better part of 5 inches of rain, which is why we’re highlighting these two days as the days to watch for the beginning of those flooding chances.
Lastly, I want to give mention to next Weekend (namely Saturday), which also looks to stay active with more heavy rain and perhaps some thunder in the area, which itself will likely yield itself at least another couple inches of rain, though that system is of course somewhat further out, so the specifics on that one are somewhat more subject to change given the models tend to hone in on more accurate solutions as they get closer to a given system in time.
On the whole, the next 7 days will likely host baseline rainfall totals in the range of 5-7″, with the possibility of isolated spots across the area seeing totals higher than that, hence our concern with flash flooding and rising river levels in the coming days as those systems saturate the ground. Worth mentioning is one benefit of this rainfall is that it WILL do scores of good in chipping away in those ongoing drought conditions across the area (some areas have severe drought, and portions of Marshall county are even in an extreme-level drought), but of course as with anything, there is always the chance of “too much of a good thing”, and the better part of 7 inches of rain is certainly one case of that.
Wrapping that all up into a 7 day forecast, it really shows just how wet the week is, speaking big-picture. As mentioned previously, we’re highlighting that midweek timeframe for the heavy rain and flood chances (we’re not highlighting those days for severe weather, we’d of course let you know otherwise), and we’ll probably see more of that into next Weekend as well. You also notice the temperatures stay fairly suppressed, with only a couple shots at 60s in the next week or so, but mostly staying cooler in the 50s. Of course, should the forecast change in ANY way regarding any threat, be it flooding or ANYTHING, we’ll keep you update to date with the latest here at Tennessee Valley Weather. Stay in touch with the forecast with Ben, Fred and Kelli over the next 5 days, and you’ll have the freshest info as soon as we do. Let’s stay dry this week, folks!
