Good Tuesday everyone and welcome to another mini heat wave. Temps will return to the 90s today and will stay there for highs over the next few days. Throw in some humidity and you have the making for an oppressive stretch of weather. Changes continue to show up in the longer range that should gradually wipe out the extreme heat and increase the threat for showers and storms.

High temps today will head into the low 90s for central and eastern Kentucky with mid 90s likely in the west.


 Current Temps



Humidity levels will increase and this will give us a heat index of 100 degrees in the west and mid and upper 90s elsewhere. There is also a slight chance for a shower or thunderstorm to go up in the eastern half of the state this afternoon and evening.

Wednesday looks to be the peak heating day across our region with low and middle 90s for highs for many. Areas of western Kentucky should soar into the upper 90s. Heat index values may top out near 100 for many areas and this will approach the danger category.

Temps will begin to come down by Thursday and Friday as a cold front approaches from the northwest. This should touch off some scattered showers and thunderstorms by the end of the week with a better chance for storms this weekend. Some of these may be strong or severe as we have a nice shot of cooler air moving in from the northern plains. You can see that here on the GFS Ensembles Temp Departure map for Friday…

 


As we look a little farther down the road, we find a cooler overall look to the maps for the middle of the month…



I continue to see this pattern becoming much more active in terms of showers and thunderstorms that can put down quite a bit of water before all is said and done. This is NOT the Summer of 2010.

Have a great Tuesday and take care.