Drought conditions worsen in Middle Tennessee with no rain in sight

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — All year we’ve been keeping a close eye on the drought conditions in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. This year we’ve experienced times of severe drought and times of plentiful rainfall.

Lately, rain has been hard to come by. So far in August, Nashville International Airport has only received two-thirds of an inch of rainfall, and locations in southern Tennessee have gotten even less.

The latest drought monitor shows more than half of Tennessee is experiencing abnormally dry conditions and since last week the area under moderate drought conditions has doubled.

The drought conditions have been much worse, but we are heading into our driest time of the year and the latest forecasts are showing almost no rainfall for the rest of the month.

According to Tennessee state climatologist Andrew Joyner, the best hope to stop drought conditions from forming this fall is to hope for something tropical.

“The only possible change would be if there’s Gulf moisture, so a tropical system which is usually how we get our rainfall in October, especially September, October, November. Last fall we got into some pretty bad drought situations because we had no tropical moisture in that period of the year,” said Joyner.

Fall and winter of 2023 featured areas of extreme and even exceptional drought in Middle Tennessee.

Joyner said if the long-range forecasts are correct, we could see similar conditions to last year.

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Joyner also mentioned the impacts that an impending drought could have on the region. “If the parts of the state like Middle and West Tennessee are drier there may be brush fires and that’s why I lean toward agricultural impacts. If we were experiencing more extreme drought in the east then I may lean toward wildfire impacts because of the fuel load.”

Drought impacts in Middle and West Tennessee are more severe for farmers, while in eastern parts of the state, the bigger focus is forest fires.

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