Why tornadoes could be Francine’s biggest impact in Middle Tennessee

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The latest forecast track is for Tropical Storm Francine — which has strengthened into a hurricane — to make landfall in Louisiana. Then it is expected to move north along the Mississippi River.

This track has the center of Francine going over West Tennessee and missing Middle Tennessee. According to meteorologists, this western track will likely cause more impacts to Middle Tennessee, and bring the risk for tornadoes.

Mark Rose, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Nashville, said locations east of the track have a greater threat for tornadoes than the west side.

“If you’re on the other side of the track, if you’re on the west side of the track there’s much less instability and much less wind shear and it’s just not as conducive for tornadoes,” said Rose.

Rose said the higher instability and wind shear on the east side of tropical systems is caused by the storm’s motion. The winds on the east side are out of the south and the storm will be moving from the south. That causes the winds on the east side to be much stronger than on the west side.

He said tornadoes will be possible on Thursday and Friday with the remnants of Francine, but he doesn’t expect any huge ones.

“If we do get tornadoes they would probably be small like EF-0, EF-1 as most tropical tornadoes are, but because of the storm track, that does place us into the favored region,” said Rose.

Rose mentioned that any tornado, even an EF-0 is dangerous and can cause damage.

Back in July, Hurricane Beryl produced 67 tornadoes from Texas to New York. All the tornadoes and tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Service were on the eastern side of Beryl.

Francine might not produce as many tornadoes as Beryl, but it is important to be weather alert when the remnants of Francine get here.

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