Good Thursday to one and all. We continue to see gorgeous fall weather across our part of the world. To say this is as good as it gets during August would be an understatement. Heck, this would be awesome for late September! Speaking of our 9th month of the year, it’s just around the corner and I am tracking some changes to start things off.
Highs today will be back into the mid and upper 70s for much of the region. Sunny morning skies will see some clouds fill in during the afternoon hours.
Friday looks similar with just a small spike in temps compared to today. Still, things look great.
Moisture starts to increase over the weekend and that could cause a shower or thunderstorm to go up. The best chance appears to be on Sunday…
Temps will warm back into the lower 80s for much of the region. Humidity levels will come up as well.
From there, it’s all about what happens with Tropical Storm Erika. The models continue to come up with different solutions with each run., but are targeting anywhere from Florida to the Carolinas for a possible hit. The Canadian model…
The GFS is similar, but a little slower and farther west…
There’s still a lot of time to watch and see what happens with this storm, and if it will have any direct impact on our weather here in Kentucky. Something to think about… Tropical systems can impact the behavior of the overall pattern across the United States. Some of the overnight model runs aren’t looking as warm into the first half of September with how they play Erika.
Here’s the latest 5 day track from the Tropical Prediction Center…
Have a great day and take care.
From the latest model runs, it looks like Erika will be only a minor player in our weather with the best chances of impact in extreme Eastern KY. I remember hurricane Jean hitting eastern FL and then moving through GA and the Carolinas at enough of an angle that we got a great deal of rain in Harlan Co. with the rain shield only hitting the Virginia/WVA border counties. Also, the size of the storm during this time will come into play as far as how wide the rain shield is too!
In my opinion, National Hurricane Center is rather aggressive in developing this system into a hurricane by Monday morning. Too many factors going against this thing.
That may ultimately affect track of storm and keep it in tropical storm mode, if that, and impact south Florida head-on instead of curving it along east coast of S.E.
161 years ago on this date (Aug 27) was a tornado in Louisville:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=tornado_climatology_1854
It was estimated to be of only F2 strength with a path length of a mere two miles. Thus, a twister like this one could have been rather quickly forgotten after the damage was cleaned up.
Sadly, this 1854 twister made a direct hit on a crowded church, with 20+ people losing their lives.
The good news is that since this August 1854 event, there have been no recorded fatalities from tornadoes in KY during August – believe it or not.
As we know, spring is peak season in Kentucky and Tennessee for twister, including stronger tornadoes. On somewhat rare occasions, these stronger twisters can also strike our region during late fall and even the middle of winter.
But the few July/August/September tornadoes recorded in Kentucky and Tennessee tend to be relatively weak. In fact, none in KY have been rated higher than F2/EF2. Any stronger tornadoes this time of year in the USA tend to stay closer to the Canadian boarder. Thus, this 1854 Louisville event (again, only an F2) causing such high loss of life in August is a sad anomaly. Lets hope our area can go at least another 160 years at least with no August tornado fatalities.
Thanks Chris for tropical update.
Feel much safer going on my trip.