Jonathan Vigh

Thankfully the latest round of storms has not been as heavy as yesterday's downpours. The rain at CHA began at around 12:25 PM yesterday. With the latest addition from today's rain, the airport appears to have reached an unholy 24-hour rainfall total of 6.66". Subject to change. #Chattanooga #TNwx

Given yesterday's extreme rainfall in #Chattanooga and #EastRidge, things could go downhill quite quickly.

NWS Morristown just issued a Flash Flood Warning for southern Hamilton County, including Chattanooga, Collegedale, East Ridge, southern Bradley County, and Marion County. Up to 1" of new rain has already fallen and another 0.5-2" are possible.

forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.ph...

As of 10:00 PM EDT traffic flowing again on I-24 east and west, just west of the 24/75 junction. Large amounts of backed up traffic in all directions approaching the area before traffic can move at speed again. Updates tonight on @WDEFNews12.

14/ Finally, while it's not wise to attribute any single event to climate change, research shows that these types of events are becoming more and more frequent as atmospheric moisture increases. Expect more of these 1 in 200-year rainfall events in the future.

13/ The system works! Tell Representative Chuck Fleischmann that TN-03 needs fully funded weather services and accompanying research funding to continue improving our weather warnings.

12/ A quick word on the value of our National Weather Service. During the event, a base level flash flood warning was issued. As the event intensified, an Wireless Emergency Alert was sent out to cell phones in the affected area advising against unnecessary travel.

11/ If you are caught in a flash flood, move to high ground. Don't try to drive through flood waters. It's simply not worth losing your car, or worse, your life. #TurnAroundDontDrown

10/ Looking ahead to tomorrow, the NOAA Weather Prediction Center has highlighted that more heavy rain and flash flooding is possible for the area. Unlike today, we won't be starting from dry conditions, so it won't take nearly as much rain to create more problems.

9/ Interestingly, this was not the first time I'd seen 6" in 6 hours in this area. Back in 1995, we had a similar amount of rainfall in this time span during Hurricane Opal.

8/ I experienced this event. I was having dinner with friends to celebrate my birthday over near Hamilton Place Mall. During the 2 hours we were at the restaurant, approximately 4" of rain fell, causing a retention pond to overflow and spill water across the street.

7/ It had been quite dry in the weeks leading up to this event, with D0 (abnormally dry) occurring in parts of Hamilton County. The dry antecedent conditions helped prevent even worse flooding from occurring.

Source: Drought Monitor: droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/S...

Flooding causes problems, evacuations, I-24 closure in Chattanooga area | Chattanooga Times Free Press Heavy rains caused flooding across Hamilton County Tuesday evening.

6/ Impacts were widespread, with impassable flooding conditions in some areas along I-24.

Severe flash flooding occurred in the East Ridge area with numerous homes flooded. Numerous other roads were closed.
timesfreepress.com/news/2025/au...

5/ The vast majority of the rain (5.87") fell in 3.5 hours, from 4:15 PM to 7:45 PM. Adding up the hourly rainfall totals ending at 6 PM (1.58"), 7 PM (2.32"), and 8 PM (1.43"), we get a 3-hourly total of 5.08". This is also near the 200-year return level.

4/ Putting this into context, this exceeded the 200-year return level for a 6-h precipitation event. (Source: NOAA Atlas 14, which assumes a stationary climate).

3/ Radar indicated that even heavier rain may have fallen southeast of the airport, near East Ridge and Hamilton Place.

2/ Total daily rainfall for the event is shown below, with 6.40" at CHA and a broad area of 5-6" totals across Chattanooga, East Ridge, and up toward Harrison.

A quick thread on today's extreme rainfall event in #Chattanooga. Lovell Field Airport (CHA) just experienced 6.20" of rain in a 6-hour period.
weather.gov/wrh/timeseri...

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WPC issued as many as six MPDs for the deadly flash flooding in the TX Hill Country starting yesterday evening and lasting through much of today. The first MPD generally set the stage for what was to come, while the next three shown were as the event unfolded.

9/ If you disagree with slashing weather research, contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and let them know that weather research is critical national infrastructure that is vital for this country's future. www.house.gov/representati...
www.senate.gov/senators/sen...

8/ These costs will come in the form of direct damages that could have been avoided, indirect losses from greater uncertainty (e.g., unnecessary evacuations), higher prices for agricultural products due to lower crop yields, higher insurance premiums, etc.

7/ Breaking it down on a per capita basis, cutting $1 billion for weather research would save each person about $3, but they can expect to pay somewhere between $30 and 300 a year more compared to what they would have with world-leading weather research behind their forecasts.

6/ So while the Administration may be "saving" several hundred million dollars with these cuts, the country is going to pay to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year in increased weather costs and impacts.

5/ The value of the other research that is proposed to be cut, such as seasonal forecasting, regional climate centers, research to improve other weather hazards, and the social science research that connects research to people, is likely similar to that of hurricanes.

The Social Value of Hurricane Forecasts Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

4/ A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in 2024 estimated that improvements in hurricane forecasts since 2007 reduces costs by 19%, an average $5 billion for EACH hurricane landfall.
www.nber.org/papers/w32548

3/ Scientific support for hurricane hunter missions would end and flight hours would be slashed. The data collected by these reconnaissance flights are one of the key reasons why the U.S. has seen marked improvements in hurricane forecasting over the past several decades.

2/ Focusing in on hurricanes, this would be a generational loss to hurricane forecasting. NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and Hurricane Research Division, where the top hurricane models are developed, would be closed. michaelrlowry.substack.com/p/noaa-propo...

BalancedWx Special: NOAA releases its FY26 budget justification document It's still the OMB budget - but now with all the gory disastrous details

The Administration's proposed FY26 budget terminates NOAA's weather research programs and cooperative institutes, transferring just a handful of functions to NWS. This would eviscerate nearly all of NOAA's weather research infrastructure & expertise. balancedweather.substack.com/p/balancedwx...

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These images sum up where the U.S. is currently at. Our Constitution, people, and liberties are under threat.

Called my TN Senators today and urged them to vote NO on this ugly, nasty bill that would cut vital services, science, and infrastructure investment.

#NoKings

Two minutes worth of Republicans JD Vance, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, and John Thune criticizing the use of the IRS to punish organizations for their politics: