A tropical system will impact Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — In the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Francine has formed. It is expected to strengthen to a hurricane by late Tuesday, and the forecast has this storm impacting Middle Tennessee & Southern Kentucky starting Thursday.

Hurricane warnings are now in effect for the Louisiana coastline, and tropical storm warnings stretch back over east Texas and inland into Louisiana. Francine is forecast to become a Cat 2 hurricane before making landfall Wednesday afternoon.

The storm track has it becoming a hurricane by Tuesday, making landfall between Lake Charles & New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon. Then, lifting northward to our region by Thursday afternoon into Friday.

When this storm arrives to our area, heavy rain and wind gusts will be the primary impacts. Another impact is tornadoes. Like what we experienced with Beryl in July, weak tornadoes are possible within the outer bands of a tropical system.

The wind gusts will increase ahead of the rainfall on Thursday. Gusts could reach 40-50 mph across the southern/southwest counties of Middle Tennessee. Elsewhere, gusts 25-45 mph likely from Thursday into Friday.

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Rain and storms will increase after 3 PM Thursday, and persist off and on into Saturday. At times, rain will be heavy and there could be some embedded severe storms.

Rain chances persist through the weekend and perhaps well into next week! Both models are forecasting a lot of beneficial rain. Most areas could see up to 3 inches of rain with more than 5 inches possible in other spots. However, due to the drought conditions, we are concerned for potential flooding too.

We will be keeping a close eye on this system all week.

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