What’s coming up?
Today: Showers and thunderstorms storms, high of 88, low of 70Sunday: 50 percent chance of rain, thunderstorms, high of 89, low of 70Monday: Scattered storms, chance of rain 40 percent, high 89, low 70Tuesday: Scattered storms, chance of rain 40 percent, high 91, low 73Wednesday: High 91, low 73, storm chance 30 percentThursday: High 89, ow 72, storm chance 30 percentSource: Paul, Barys, www.wrcbtv.com/weather
Any holiday-weekend fireworks shows set for tonight may fizzle rather than pop, as the cloudy skies and scattered showers that hung over the tri-state region this week will stay around through the weekend.
"What you see is what you get," WRCB-TV Channel 3 chief meteorologist Paul Barys said Friday afternoon.
He's calling for a 50 to 60 percent chance of showers through Sunday, with isolated spots of heavier rain totaling as much as 1 to 1.5 inches and highs in the upper 80s. The chance of rain goes down Monday, but Barys said the heat and humidity will be high that day and on the Fourth of July holiday Tuesday.
"It's going to feel real, real summery going into next week," Barys said.
Overall, June was mild compared to last year, when the region was gripped by punishing heat and brutal drought. The National Weather Service website shows the average temperature last month was 76, a tick below normal. June last year scored an average temp of 80.5, which is 4 degrees above normal.
There were five days with highs above 90 degrees last month, compared to 21 in June 2016. And last month's rain totals of 3.56 inches, about a third of an inch below normal, were close to three times the 1.22 inches in 2016.
Sam Roberts, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tenn., said the position of the jet stream is responsible for the recent rains, bringing cool- weather troughs down from Canada much later in the season than usual.
"Once we get to the end of May or beginning of June, it's usually pretty far north," Roberts said. "This summer it's dipped down a few more times later than normal."
That's good news for the fall fire season, said Corinne Gould, assistant commissioner for public affairs at the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. After a summer of deep drought, big blocks of East Tennessee and North Georgia went up in flames in wildfires last fall.
The Chimney Tops fire in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in November killed 14 people and did hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Closer to home, multiple blazes threatened property and forced evacuations in areas such as Mowbray Mountain in Hamilton County and Fox Mountain in Dade County, Ga., and DeKalb County, Ala. On Nov. 10, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture counted 53 fires on 9,680 acres throughout the Cumberland and East Tennessee District. In the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in North Georgia, the Rough Ridge fire consumed around 30,000 acres.
"Chattanooga was right in the center point for the severe conditions that started in springtime last year," Gould said. "At one point, the entire state was in drought, but the southeast portion of the state got it first and had those drought conditions the longest.
"We're definitely pleased with the wet weather in the spring and early part of the summer, and we hope it continues."
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.