Front Coming in the “Back Door”

 

 

(Tuesday, June 23, 2009) – Only a few passing clouds this morning at sunrise. Low temperatures in the 70s. At 6 AM, temperatures ranged from 70 at Savannah, Lexington and Paris to 77 at Dyersburg.

The high pressure ridge that has been directly over us has shifted a bit to the west and will do so a little more today and will allow a cold front to come in from the EAST! This is called a backdoor front since cold fronts usually come in from the west or northwest. This front will do two things: 1) allow for some pop-up thunderstorms this afternoon (chances at 20% that it will rain on your garden/lawn) and 2) will push the highest heat index values a little further west.

At 4 am, the boundary streached from Springfield, IL to Chattanooga, TN to Jacksonville, FL. One lone thundershower was near Evansville, IN which was along the boundary. The West TN counties in the heat advisory today are Lake, Dyer, Lauderdale, Tipton, Shelby and Fayette. It will be hot all over W.TN today. Highs will be back into the mid-upper 90s. So even if your county is NOT under a heat advisory, it will be hot enough to use caution especially between 10 am and 7 pm.

I’m not optimistic about any big-time relief the rest of the week. Drier air will work into the region, but that won’t curb the hot temperatures. It will lower risks associated with high heat index values so that advisories may not be necessary after today.