Areas of Severe Thunderstorms and Excessive Rainfall; Heat Wave Builds in the Intermountain West and Plains

A slow moving front will bring rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall to the central Plains eastward to the east-central U.S.. The first widespread significant heat wave of summer for the Intermountain West and Plains is expected to develop today and expand through next week. Dangerous heat will continue to impact portions of the Southwest and Southeast. Read More >

On Monday, August 21st, 2017, all of of North America experienced a solar eclipse of the sun. The path of the total solar eclipse was from the Plateau to much of southeast Tennessee to southwest North Carolina. The maximum solar eclipse occurred between 233 and 236 pm ET. Due to the moon’s blockage of the suns solar radiation, temperatures (red line) dropped as much as 10 degrees between 2 and 3 pm Monday afternoon. However, the temperature drop varied greatly across east Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and southwest North Carolina. The dewpoint temperature (green line), which is measure of moisture in the air, generally increased during the eclipse. The graphs below show the different temperature and dewpoint observation traces across southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, and southwest North Carolina.