The National Weather Service predicts the Upper Cumberland’s summer will be warmer and wetter than normal.
The Climate Prediction Center has released its summer outlook for 2024. Nashville-based Meteorologist Paige Baggett said this season will be much warmer than usual owing to the transition from an El Niño pattern to a La Niña.
“It’s looking like it’s going to be forty to fifty percent warmer than what it typically is,” Baggett said. “Value wise, that’s kind of hard to tell right now. I can tell you, looking at our long term models, and this is just going out into middle of June, that’s about as far as I can see right now on our models, it’s showing temperatures in the low eighties, upper seventies to low eighties.”
Baggett said the heat will combine with moist, humid air to increase the risk of showers and thunderstorms this summer.
She said weather patterns like this are likely to make this summer’s weather inconsistent.
“Warmer air kind of helps to, to make things a little bit more unstable here in Tennessee,” Baggett said, “And with it being wetter than normal that kind of indicates that we might have a little bit more shower and thunderstorm activity.”
Baggett said that the weather should be familiar to residents.
“Here in Tennessee, we’re used to having our afternoon thunderstorms, you know, it’s nothing out of the usual,” Baggett said, “You know, with it being warmer and seeing there’s going to be indications of it being a little bit warmer, it, it, it’ll be something just to kind of keep in the back of your mind.”
Baggett said El Niño produces dry falls like the one experienced last year but as it changes back to La Niña it can bring rainfall in the summer.
The average high temperature in the Upper Cumberland settles around 87 degrees during July and August. Last year, Nashville reported 53 days over 90 degrees compared with 75 days two years ago.
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