A tropical system could impact Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Over the Gulf of Mexico, there is an area of thunderstorms that is forecasted to become a tropical storm or hurricane. If it strengthens into a tropical storm it will be called Francine, and the forecast has this storm impacting Middle Tennessee & Southern Kentucky!

As of 7 AM, the storm is “Potential Tropical Cyclone Six”, and is forecasted to become Tropical Storm Francine by midday to afternoon Monday.

The storm track has it becoming a hurricane by late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, making landfall between Lake Charles & New Orleans on Wednesday evening. Then, lifting northward to our region by Thursday evening 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. Some parts of the region could receive over 3 inches of rainfall.

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

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