News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Despite overnight rainfall Friday, dry conditions prevail across the Upper Cumberland.
National Weather Service Meteorologist John Cohen said the region received 0.5 inches of rain. He said that amount of rainfall over multiple straight days would impact both fire concerns and the drought. But Cohen said that does not appear on the horizon.
“When you talk about drought it can be somewhat subjective, but we are clearly in a drought,” Cohen said. “It’s just going to take a pretty good amount of substantial rainfall to get us out of this.”
Cohen said the ten-day forecast does not show any change in the current pattern and no significant rain is forecast. Local fire officials said earlier this week they expected a Fire Ban would be needed next week without appreciable rain.
“September and October are our driest months, so we’re coming out of that now,” Cohen said. “So, hopefully we’ll get into December and get more of a typically winter time pattern and add El Nino on top of that.”
Cohen said it may even take until December before we get any relief from the dry conditions.
“I think what we need to hold on hope for is we are going into an El Nino pattern and that does typically mean an active southern branch of the jet stream, which means the deep south above normal precipitation, and even in the mid-south where we are, slightly above normal precipitation can be expected,” Cohen said. “So there is hope beyond the next ten days, but over the next ten days we don’t really see a drought busting system as of yet.”
Cohen said there is always hope with the weather. He said next week there is a gulf system that could bring a quarter-inch of rain.
“There could be heavier amounts to the south of your area,” Cohen said. “There’s always hope, but at any rate it looks like a dry first half of the week coming up but later in the week we’ll have to watch that Gulf System.”
Cohen said we are four to seven inches short of our average yearly rainfall as of now.
