The Turn, the River, and the Flop

The beginning of the month of June was anticipated to be an active time for severe weather in West Tennessee. The oncoming cold front had already done much damage to the Plains states including Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. Tornadoes had ravaged already damaged areas and were responsible for 19 deaths including 3 storm chasers.

What we ended up encountering, here in West Tennessee was a some-what calmer scenario...

You might remember the events that took place on Thursday, May 30th in central West Tennessee. A storm cell formed in northern Mississippi and traveled north from Hardeman county, through Madison county, and exited West Tennessee through Weakley county. Although it wasn't given a severe thunderstorm warning in the Bolivar area, it ended up being warned upon entering the Jackson metropolitan area and continued that way even through western Kentucky. Winds were estimated to have gusted up to 80mph in some parts of Madison county, and trees fell over taking down power lines putting hundreds of people in the dark for several hours.

Photo courtesy: Denise Meriwether

That was the first in a series of storms that were expected to strike the Mid-South during the end of the week, but what followed was not even close to what folks farther west experienced. On Friday, we started our day out with heavy rain that added up to over an inch in many areas including Brownsville in Haywood county which actually accumulated closer to two-and-a-half inches, but the rest of the day was much drier with added sunshine.

Saturday was expected to be the day that we would have the greatest chance for severe weather. Models seemed to be coming into agreement that from 6PM to Midnight on Saturday night, we would have a chance for all forms of severe weather with the main threats being damaging winds and large hail.

The timelines I posted hardly seemed to change their trend either, which begs the question...why didn't we get the strong storms we expected?

There are a few reasons. To start, severe weather is dependent on a few main ingredients. Leaving out the technical jargon that could seem confusing I'll start from the bottom. Storms need moisture, something to lift the moisture into the atmosphere, and energy in the atmosphere to trigger the storms. In addition, the faster the winds are in the upper atmosphere, the stronger the storms tend to become. That said, moisture and lift were present, but weather forecast models expected energy to be high and it wasn't. With the lack of sufficient energy, these sub-severe storms brought winds that were estimated to have gusted up to 50mph in some parts of Madison county. They were just strong enough to push over some trees in West Tennessee that had been weakened by the storms that occurred earlier in the week.

I ended up at the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport in Jackson Saturday early in the afternoon in search of a flat piece of land with a broad view to see the front come in. The front had arrived earlier than originally expected and along with cloud cover that prevented daytime heating, energy ended up not being significant enough to create severe weather. Observations from the event included a two hour 10º temperature drop, heavy rain, and very gusty winds. The winds at the airport gusted to 37mph.

Sunshine even started to pop out of the clouds later in the evening and it left many wondering whether or not severe weather was still imminent. It wasn't. Either way, when severe weather seems possible, it's my job to make sure you're aware of that and in the end, these experiences can help us learn more about the weather and I intend to use them that way.