07/21/2026
It's Tuesday, July 21, and I hope you are having a good morning so far Harlan County. We are fresh out of a NWS Jackson weather briefing, and I have the current weather outlook for you. Going to do my best to give you what I like to call "I am definitely not a meteorologist" take on all the information I have about today's storms, so here we go.
The NWS initially expected 2 waves of storms for us today, one in the morning and the main body this evening. It appears that the morning storms did not come as expected, but it has given us cloud cover so far. This is good news because not only will that keep rain totals lower before the evening storm, but the cloud cover will keep the atmosphere from heating up as much, helping to keep the evening storms a little weaker. They also state the expected rainfall amounts according to the models have decreased slightly. Still enough rainfall chance to justify the flood watch we will go under at 1pm, but less than expected from earlier models. The biggest threats of severe weather continue to be for the Northern counties above the Mountain Parkway. And this system is expected to run in a North to South direction instead of the West to East direction we normally see with storms. They do expect the system to keep moving and not stall out, which means once it gets here we will probably only have about a 2 hour window of threat before it moves south and out of our county. This is also good news because the quicker it moves through, the less chance we will have to get heavy rains that could cause flash flooding.
Now to what you are wondering the most, how bad is it going to be and when is it going to be here. Timing was still pretty uncertain, but from what I was able to piece together it sounds like the main bulk of the storms should arrive in our area between 6 pm and midnight tonight. Definitely don't quote me on that timing, but I would start closely monitoring weather in that time frame. The main threats for us will be straight line winds (60-70 mph) and heavy rain. Rainfall will depend on how individual cells form, and will depend on what areas these cells pass over. We may see some pop up showers or isolated storms before this evening, but the main concern is focused on this evening.
Now that we have covered the report, my suggestions to everyone for this evening is to stay weather aware and up to date with the latest information from your trusted weather sources. Prepare for the possibility of high winds, keep aware of rising creeks and flash flooding should your area get heavy rains, especially if you are out on the roads. Power outages due to downed trees or limbs falling is always a possibility, so make sure your phones are charged before the event so you can still get weather alerts if needed. We know what could possibly come our way this evening now, so do your best to be as prepared for the worst case scenario as you can be, and pray for the best. We will update if any major changes happen, but until then Stay Safe and Be Prepared Harlan County!
