To quote a currently popular song:

I toooooooold you so, oh I told you so…

I hope everyone enjoys their rain, and you`re welcome.

You know those weeks where it seems like everyone wants a piece of you and you’re fielding angry phone calls and emails all week?

Yeah, one of them.

Thank God it’s almost Friday.

Jerod Askew (New signee; no #95 currently on roster)
Class: Freshman
Hometown: Chesapeake, Va. (Oscar Smith High School)
H/W: 6-1, 230
Position: Linebacker

Ranked by Rivals.Com as the #6 inside linebacker and #1 run blocker in the 2009 recruiting class, Askew finished his high school career at Oscar Smith with school records in tackles both for a single season and career. He was second in sacks in school history. He posted 140 tackles — 22 of them for losses — along with 10 sacks and three interceptions during a 2008 campaign that saw Oscar Smith limit opponents to 4.1 points per game en route to the state championship. Askew is one of 22 players signed by Tennessee in 2009.

Today’s recommended VOLS reading:

KNS: 16 of UT’s 22 signees enrolled for first session
Dalton Daily Citizen: Kiffin on a boat of his own
KNS: Kiffin happy with turnout at linemen camp

I’ll submit this comment from Memphis Chief of Police Larry Goodwin without comment. Even though it’s hard to refrain:

In Memphis, we’re keeping score. It’s handgun permit holders two, unarmed citizens zero

Meanwhile, legislative sponsors of the guns in restaurants bill are already planning to override the governor’s veto.

It’s been quite some time since our area here on the northern Cumberland Plateau has been under a “moderate risk” for severe weather from the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center, but that is the case today.

We’re on the fringe of the moderate risk area, which includes all of Middle Tennessee and much of East Tennessee up to the Kentucky line, and extends back down into central Alabama and Georgia. As I said yesterday, it was very likely that the SPC would upgrade the risk today, based on the model data, but I wasn’t sure if they would include our area in the heightened risk area. As it turns out, we were upgraded not for the tornado risk (only a 5% risk here, according to the SPC) but for the large hail risk. The SPC predicts nearly a 50-50 chance of damaging hail within 25 miles of any spot here, which is pretty significant. Damaging hail is defined as hail measuring 3/4 inch or larger in diameter. There’s also a 30% risk of damaging wind, according to the SPC.

We’ve had thunderstorms this morning — starting around daybreak and lasting much of the morning — but those are expected to clear out and give way to a partly sunny sky later. That’s what is going to destablize the atmosphere and pave the way for these severe storm possibilities. If the sun doesn’t break, the severe risk will be diminished.

For whatever it’s worth, however, the models aren’t painting as ugly a picture as they were yesterday. Today’s GFS computer model is predicting a lifted index of -5 and CAPE values of around 1,200 J/kg for early afternoon. That’s still nothing to sneeze at, but not nearly as bad as the -7/2,000 J/kg picture that was being painted yesterday.

Still, the NWS’s Morristown office has released a statement saying that a “significant outbreak of severe weather is expected today.” NWS Nashville has issued the same.

There have already been some storm reports filtering in from the first batch of storms, which weren’t too terrible as they passed through Scott County but did spawn severe thunderstorm warnings along the southern Plateau. There was a reported tornado in Marion County. There has been no confirmation by the NWS, but there is some damage and power outages being reported.