Showers and Storms continue across the East; Heat, Critical Fire Weather, Drought, and Poor Air Quality continues in the West

A series of fronts will focus locally heavy showers and storms across portions of the central and eastern U.S. through the end of the workweek. Dangerous to extreme heat continues across the Southwest U.S., eventually spreading eastward over the weekend into early next week. Elevated fire weather conditions continue across the Great Basin, with degraded air quality lingering across the Northwest. 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.