While we have had a couple of days with scattered storms around here lately, it has been rather dry the past several weeks overall across the Tennessee Valley. Where isolated storms did happen yesterday and the day before, 1 to 3 inches of rain fell, but many locations have had a trace to quarter inch at most over the past seven days. When looking at the past 30 days, most folks have been between 1 and 3 inches of rain, which is only 25 to 50% of normal, based on climatology. Our long-term rainfall deficits for the past 365 days have now climbed into the 1 to 2 feet range areawide. The current Drought Monitor has most of the area ranked as “Abnormally Dry” with “Moderate” drought conditions creeping back into parts of southern middle Tennessee. This will get updated again tomorrow.

If there is any good news, it is that the pattern may start to get active again. NWS currently forecasts rain of a quarter to half inch over the next 7 days, with all of that happening around next Wednesday with the next frontal system coming across. It is likely those numbers will trend into the 0.75-1.5 inch range as we get the Wednesday night into Thursday period of next week into that map’s timeframe. And the NWS Climate Prediction Center’s precipitation outlooks on through the first week of October keep us with above average precipitation chances. We are into fall now, the jet stream will be coming south, and the potent El Nino across the Equatorial Pacific will help enhance and moisture-load the subtropical jet stream. Hopefully that will mean more rain chances for us in the weeks ahead!