Drenching storms to ease humidity for some in southern US later this week

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist

Steamy air that has been a staple in the southern United States in recent days will linger, but a break is coming for some locations by way of heavy thunderstorms during the middle of this week.

It is not uncommon for AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures to reach 100 F or higher during the summer in the South and that certainly has been the case in recent days.

With high school sports training camps ramping up as many high-school-age and younger students are returning to school in August, the weather will not be too kind.

Remember to take breaks from the heat and stay hydrated. Avoid strenuous activity from the late morning through the afternoon hours.

This time of the year, strong cool fronts that bring relief to the South are rare.

However, while the passage of a strong cool front is not foreseen, a weaker variety of the same will make some progress over the interior South as the week progresses.

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The main roles the front will play will be to bring an uptick in thunderstorms initially, then trim humidity levels and allow slightly cooler nights from the Tennessee Valley to the Appalachians and Piedmont areas later.

Any thunderstorm in the South can be heavy and gusty in the summer by default.

Storms that erupt along the front on Tuesday over the Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians are likely to be just that and perhaps locally severe.

By Wednesday the threat will shift southward and is forecast to extend from Louisiana to Georgia, South Carolina and coastal North Carolina.

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The main threats from the storms will be torrential downpours that can trigger street and highway flooding and significant travel slow-downs. In a few cases, winds can get strong enough in some neighborhoods to break tree limbs and cause sporadic power outages.

From Thursday to Friday, and perhaps right through the weekend, the corridor of thunderstorms will settle in the zone from the northeastern Gulf coast to part of the southern Atlantic coast.

This means that areas from northern Florida to southeastern Georgia and perhaps the Carolina coast will be at risk for multiple showers and thunderstorms on a daily basis.

The greatest risk from the storms will be for repeating downpours that can lead to flooding problems.

While the storms pose a risk from flooding, pockets of abnormally dry to drought conditions exist. As a result, the rain will be beneficial to these areas and any neighborhoods where lawns have turned brown.

Some cities that are likely to get a slight reduction in humidity levels later this week include Atlanta; Nashville, Tennessee; Huntsville, Alabama; Greenville, South Carolina; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Sometimes, when fronts stall in the Deep South, over the Gulf of Mexico or the nearby Atlantic, weak disturbances can slowly evolve into a tropical system," according to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.

Hurricane Barry formed in a somewhat similar setup back in July.

While this is a possibility in this case, the chance this time appears to be only very slight at this time, Kottlowski said.

"The earliest something could form in this area would not be until this weekend or early next week," Kottlowski stated.

AccuWeather meteorologists will continue to monitor the situation.

Otherwise, the Atlantic basin is likely to remain void of organized tropical activity this week.

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