Good Monday, folks. It’s been an incredibly warm and humid start to October, but all that changes this week as our pattern totally flips. The catalyst  for the big change comes as a major fall cold front teams up with a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico. The end result means rain and some serious fall air for our region.

Tropical Storm Michael continues to strengthen and should develop into a hurricane. The models are becoming more intense with this storm as it heads toward the central Gulf Coast.

Here’s the latest from the National Hurricane Center…

cone graphic

All operational models are still west of the NHC track as of this writing. The track will largely be determined on the speed of our big fall front arriving later Wednesday into early Thursday. Even if the actual center stays to our southeast, it’s likely to throw tropical moisture up and into the front, with direct rains possibly impacting the east.

Here’s how the Canadian sees it…

You can see how the tropical moisture meets the cold front, putting down some heavy rains on that run…

The new version of the GFS is very similar to that…

We will need to be on guard for heavy rains, especially central and eastern Kentucky Wednesday into Thursday. Even if the center of the storm is well to our south, cold fronts love to tape some tropical moisture and squeeze out heavy totals.

Temps behind this come way down and go below normal for the end of the week. It’s gonna feel great!!

Another system moves through on Saturday, bringing showers with it. The air behind this looks downright cold for the middle of October. Check out the DEEP trough showing up behind that…

Several models are hinting at the first flakes of the season for the high ground of the Appalachian Mountains to our east…

That same model run has below freezing temps also showing up…

Nothing like going from one extreme to the other. 🙂

I will hook you up with another update later today and have the latest on WKYT-TV starting at 4pm.

Until then, let’s track another day of scattered showers and storms going up…

Enjoy the day and take care.