Heavy Rain (3-6″) and Gusts to 45 MPH Coming Friday into the Weekend!

WBBJ 7 Forecast Update

September 26, 2024

Joel Barnes,

WBBJ 7 Forecast Update:

A few rain showers have popped up this evening in West Tennessee but the main event will be here on Friday! Hurricane Helene is a strong category 4 hurricane and will be making landfall around 10 PM CT along the Big Bend of Florida just south of Tallahassee. Winds are gusting as high as 140 MPH in the inner eye wall. Hurricane force winds will continue for about 12 hours and possibly as far north as Atlanta Friday morning. We are expecting 3-6″ of rain and gusts to 45 MPH here locally.

Most of the high school football games across West Tennessee were moved to Thursday night to avoid the heavy rain and wind coming on Friday. There were a few spotty showers and it was a tad breezy Thursday night. Heavy rain and gusty winds are coming on Friday. Flood watches and wind advisories have also been issued through Saturday morning. The highest rain amounts and strongest winds will be in our northern counties. Catch the full forecast including the latest on Major Hurricane Helene coming up

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THIS WEEK:

Rain showers and weak storms moved in Tuesday as a cold front moved through West Tennessee and lingered into Wednesday. We didn’t see much in the way of severe storms but a few gusty storms or hail producers will popped up, but most of us will just encountered some scattered heavy rain showers. A few showers could pop up Thursday evening and impact a few of the games but most of us will stay dry. It will become a bit breezy Thursday night as well. The heavy bands of rain will move in overnight and become more widespread by Friday morning.

May be an image of map, car and text that says 'STORM TEAM WEATHER wbbjtv.com WEATHER ALERT SUMMARY WEST TENNESSEE Umion City Tiptonville Martin Paris Dyersburg Trenton Huntingdon Camdén FLOOD WATCH BENTON CARROLL CHESTER CROCKETT DYERFAYETTE DYER GIBSON HENRY HARDIN LAKE HARDEMAN HAYWOOD HENODFRSONLAUDEROALF HENDERSONI AUDEROAL MADISONMCNAIRY TIPTON WIND ADVISORY BENTONCARROL BENTON CARROLL CROCKETT DYER GIBSON HARDEMAN HAYWOOD LAUDERDALE MCNAIRY MCNAIRYTIPTON TIPTON Ripley Alamo UNTIL 7:00 AM SAT UNTIL 7:00 AMSAT AM Jackson Lexington Parsons Covington Brownsville Henderson Somerville Bolivar Memphis Selmer Savannah'

Flood watches and wind advisories have also been issued through Saturday morning. The flood watch includes all of West Tennessee although the highest amounts will be near the Kentucky border. The wind advisory is for basically north of I-40. It will be breezy for everyone but gusts to 40 MPH or higher will likely stay north of I-40.

Highs on Tuesday and Wednesday hit the low 80s but for the rest of the week, due to the clouds and showers, highs will only reach the low to mid 70s and we will likely stay that way through the weekend. Morning lows will hang in the low 60s as well for the next few days. The winds will came out of the west Tuesday, turned to the north Wednesday, and came out of the Northeast Thursday and then vary in direction the rest of the week and weekend as the tropical system moves through the area and stalls out for a few days. The strongest winds will come out of the north/northwest Friday afternoon and evening but will remain breezy on Saturday.

THE WEEKEND:

Hurricane Helene became a tropical storm on Tuesday, a hurricane on Wednesday and is forecast to become a major cat panhandle of Florida just east of Tallahassee. The storm forecast could shift some, but we are expecting the storm to turn back to the northwest as making landfall and stalling out across West Tennessee. There is a decent shot at another 3-6″ rain coming up from Thursday evening until Sunday morning for many of us. We are not expecting severe weather or extreme winds locally, but heavy rain seems more likely than not as of now from the system. The heavy rain should move out for the back half of the weekend but some light rain may linger even into Monday morning for some us. Most of next week looks cool, dry and very fall like.

May be an image of map and text that says 'STORM TEAM WEATHER wbbjtv.com FORECAST WIND SPEED & DIRECTION FRI 6:30 Union City 36 Ridgely 34 Martin 36 Paris 34 Dyersburg 32 Trenton 32 Ripley 32 Camden 30 Huntingdon don 33 Alamo 32 Covin Covington ton 31 Brownsville 31 Lexing ton 26 Jackson 32 Parsons 26 Henderson 29 Memphis 22 Somerville 27 Bolivar 29 Selmer 29 Savannah 24'

The system will keep the temperatures down and keep up under the clouds all weekend long. The winds will vary in direction around the stalled out system. Two different low pressure systems will dance around the Mid South this weekend and create what is called the Fugiwhara effect. The Fujiwhara effect is a rare phenomenon that occurs when two cyclonic vortices, such as hurricanes or tornadoes, get close enough to each other to rotate around a common center point. The effect is named after Japanese meteorologist Sakuhei Fujiwhara. For us, that means we could be stuck under two stalled out low pressure systems creating similar weather for several days in a row… meaning cloudy and rainy weather for a few days.