Triple Digit Heat
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 · 12:33 PM
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Very hot and humid conditions with triple digit heat indices to continue this week. A Heat Advisory is in effect through Saturday for most of Middle Tennessee. Not as hot early to mid next week, but overall temperatures will stay above-normal for the foreseeable future. Low rain chances mainly for the Cumberland Plateau this weekend. Low to medium rain chances area-wide early to mid next week. The Rapid Refresh model shows the ridge trapped directly over our heads! Five hundred millibar heights pressing down on the soil! Southerly winds mixing out, southwesterly gusts pushing through the valley! Mid to upper nineties baking the asphalt west of the Cumberland Plateau! The morning sounding shows eight hundred fifty millibar cooling! We are two to three degrees behind yesterday's pace! Will Nashville International Airport hit ninety-nine and match twenty nineteen? Or will the atmospheric anvil crush us where we stand?! We are suffocating under the pressure of six hundred decameters! There is no escape, no rain, no shade beneath this ceiling! The National Blend of Models brings no mercy to the valley! We burn alive in triple digit heat! Anomalous ridge shifting west on Friday toward the gulf! Interacting with an upper-low spinning toward Florida! Tropospheric moisture wrapping around the eastern edge! Isolated diurnal convection trapped along the ridge! Will the surface troff break the lock?! Slight relief early next week, but still above normal! Excessive heat advisory persistent through the weekend! No salvation from this sky! We are suffocating under the pressure of six hundred decameters! There is no escape, no rain, no shade beneath this ceiling! The National Blend of Models brings no mercy to the valley! We burn alive in triple digit heat! Triple digit heat! Above normal forever! Six hundred decameters! Triple digit heat!
The forecast discussion
KEY MESSAGES
Updated at 1231 PM CDT Wed Sep 16 2026
- Very hot and humid conditions with triple digit heat indices to continue this week.
A Heat Advisory is in effect through Saturday for most of Middle Tennessee.
- Not as hot early to mid next week, but overall temperatures will stay above-normal for the foreseeable future.
- Low rain chances mainly for the Plateau this weekend.
Low to medium rain chances area-wide early to mid next week.
SHORT TERM
(Rest of today through Thursday) Issued at 1155 AM CDT Wed Sep 16 2026
RAP mesoanalysis shows the deep-layer ridge centered right over Tennessee currently, with 500 mb heights near 600 decameters.
Boundary layer winds remain southerly to southwesterly and we've already got decent mixing outside with a few wind gusts observed.
We'll be on our way to high temperatures in the mid to upper 90s west of the Plateau this afternoon.
Some spots could hit 100 degrees again.
BNA's latest forecast high of 99 would tie the record set in 2019. Looking at observations so far this morning show we are trending 2-3 degrees behind this time yesterday with a slight cooling of 850 mb temperatures evident on the morning sounding, so perhaps we stay just under 100 degrees at BNA today, we'll see.
Nonetheless, near record breaking temperatures combining with humid air is leading to continuation of excessive heat that will persist through the short-term with little to no rain chances.
Forecast/NBM temperatures for tomorrow are nearly identical of that today.
LONG TERM
(Thursday Night through next Wednesday) Issued at 1155 AM CDT Wed Sep 16 2026
The center of the anomalous ridge will start to shift a little to our west on Friday as it interacts with an upper-low moving west toward Florida.
By then better tropospheric moisture is expected to wrap around into the eastern periphery of the ridge, basically down through the Appalachians.
This will support isolated diurnal convection Friday into the weekend, mainly focused near and across the Cumberland Plateau.
Forecast details for next week are a little less certain in some ways, but medium-range guidance/ensembles suggest a decrease in temperatures and increase in rain/storm chances as we are more influenced by systems passing to our north with a weaker ridge across the Southeast.
Associated presence of a front/surface trough will also play a role in encouraging better convective coverage early to mid week.
Either way, the trend is an improvement as conditions don't look as hot, but remain above- normal temperature wise.