SUNDAY WEATHER: 🌦️Yesterday we celebrated freedom from foreign rulers. Today we’re celebrating freedom from miserable 100-degree heat indices! It’ll still be plenty hot today, topping out around 88 degrees this afternoon, but temps — and especially the “feels-like” temp — will be ever-so-slightly cooler than what we’ve experienced for the past week. Also, there’ll be more of a hint of a gentle breeze today that’ll help out.
As for precipitation chances, there’s a 70% chance of thunderstorms today. However, they’ll be very much hit-or-miss. For the first part of the day, they’ll stay to our south. We’ll see whether outflow boundaries from this morning’s and early afternoon’s storms can trigger some storms here on the northern Cumberland Plateau by early evening, but don’t hold your breath! Any storms that do develop and become mature enough will be capable of pulling gusty winds down to the surface.
THE WEEK AHEAD: Storms will remain likely tomorrow. Storm chances will diminish but remain present every day for the remainder of the work week, then ramp up to likely again by the weekend as more organized energy rotates through the region. Temperatures will be in the upper 80s each day, so it’ll be plenty hot and muggy — just not hardly as bad as last week.
FURTHER OUT: After next weekend, we may see rain chances dial back for a little while. The pattern for the remainder of July currently looks pretty typical for this time of year — hot but not extremely so, with hard to predict thunderstorm chances on a near daily basis. Not too wet but, hopefully, not too dry either.
RIVER CONDITIONS: That severe thunderstorm that impacted Morgan and Fentress counties Friday night spiked streamflows again, so our rivers are flowing at above-normal levels for this time of year with decreased water clarity. Water temperatures also plunged, as is always the case when streamflows rise. At Burnt Mill, water temps topped out just above 75 degrees yesterday in spite of the heat, which was almost 10 degrees cooler than the day before. Big South Fork is currently flowing at about 850 cubic feet per second (cfs), and Clear Fork is at 350 cfs. Conditions are not optimal for swimming today.
