MONDAY WEATHER: The heat and humidity return in earnest this week, with no rain in sight. We’ll “only” be about 86 degrees for a high today, before dropping to near 63 degrees tonight. But the rest of the week will likely be in the low 90s, with nighttime lows in the upper 60s.
We’re making a run at the hottest September on record in Scott County. So far, we’re running almost 10 degrees above normal for the month. The hottest September on record, 2018, featured an average temperature of 73.4 degrees. The next September, 2019, wasn’t far behind, at 72.3 degrees. Through the first two weeks of the month, September 2026 is averaging above 79 degrees.
There’s a chance that we’ll see Heat Advisories posted for parts of East Tennessee this week, though the greatest threat of heat indices exceeding 100 degrees are south of our area.
THE WEEKEND: We’ll see rain chances increase for the weekend, and temperatures will drop back into the mid 80s. Rain coverage will be scant overall for the weekend. This will hopefully be the end of the most extreme heat, but we’re going to continue to see temperatures that are above-normal as we head into next week and beyond.
NEXT WEEK: Temperatures may make another run at 90 degrees to start next week. We’ve been watching and discussing a potential pattern change this upcoming weekend. Unfortunately, that possibility has fizzled a bit, and the teleconnections over the Northern Hemisphere continue to favor hot temperatures for the remainder of September and into October. It has been a miserable start to fall for those who love autumn weather, and unfortunately it just doesn’t look like a major change is approaching on the horizon. This heat pattern will break at some point, but for now the wait continues. The American GFS model is hinting at the possibility of a major pattern change around Sept. 23-24. Unfortunately, it is the GFS, which is less than solid at that range. Given the broader picture that’s currently in place, any cooldown we see may be temporary and short-lived.
RIVER CONDITIONS: We saw a slight uptick in volume after Saturday’s rainfall, but much below average streamflows continue overall. Big South fork is flowing at about 80 cubic feet per second (cfs), and Clear Fork is less than 10 cfs. Water clarity is good, and water temperatures topped out around 84 degrees yesterday — quite comfortable for swimming. So, the summer swimming season continues.
TROPICAL WATCH: The National Hurricane Center is watching a disturbance about 1,300 miles east of Bermuda that has a low chance of developing into the fifth named tropical storm of the 2026 hurricane season, but this does not currently appear to be a threat to the U.S. mainland.
