WEATHER
It’s Groundhog Day, the holiday when we pretend that rodents are fifth-dimensional creatures with knowledge of the past, present AND future. Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow (despite overcast skies in Pennsylvania), Chattanooga Chuck did not see his shadow. So winter will either continue…or not.
Showers in southern Middle Tennessee have pretty much dissipated already this morning, leaving us with cool and breezy conditions the rest of the day. The HRRR model’s radar simulation shows a few showers trying to run along the TN/AL border later today:
High temperatures will reach the mid to upper 40s, which is just slightly below average for early February:
You can expect to see more sunshine in southern Kentucky, with the clouds remaining stubborn in southern Middle Tennessee…and Metro Nashville stuck in between, along with the rest of the I-40 corridor.
Chilly tonight, with lows dropping below freezing, then we’ll only hit the low 40s for highs on Friday. A flat-out COLD start Saturday morning, then temperatures start warming up over the weekend, topping out near 50° by Saturday afternoon, and in the mid 50s Sunday:
Saturday night brings us some light rain showers — it’s not an impressive rain chance, but temperatures do look warm enough to prevent any icy/snowy shenanigans. Here’s the BAMS model’s radar simulation…which is probably overdone a bit, but at least gives us an idea of the rainiest scenario (i.e. not very rainy!):
Once the warmer temperatures arrive, they’ll stick around for a couple of days. Monday and Tuesday both look unsettled, with a pretty good chance of rain both days. Tuesday even looks warm enough to allow for the possibility of a few rumbles of thunder:
At this point, I don’t think a significant severe weather threat will shape up around here — but it’s pretty far out there in the extended forecast, so we’ll watch it carefully. After Tuesday’s rain chance moves through, colder temperatures settle in again for the back half of the work week.
LINKS
- A little background on the traditions of Groundhog Day.
- It looks like another huge flux of heat is headed into the Arctic next week — temperatures could 50+ degrees above normal at the North Pole.
- The race to provide commercial weather data is heating up.
- If Earth’s orbit is so crowded, why don’t we see space junk in photos of the Earth?
- A recently-discovered comet will approach Earth’s orbit later this month…but it will be 32 million miles away and isn’t a threat to Earth.
- The distance between the Earth and Moon is getting a little larger every year…for now. But are the two on a long-term collision course?
- NASA’s Juno probe does another flyby of Jupiter today.
- Proxima-b is over 4 light years away, but scientists think they can reach it with tiny, laser-propelled probes.
- “Seeing” music or “tasting” numbers? Here’s what we can learn from people with synaesthesia.
- Can adding spices to your diet charge up your metabolism and speed weight loss?
- A Houston-area billionaire (and Vanderbilt alumnus) is waging his own war on bad science.
- A guide to the new dog breeds making their first appearance at this year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
