Good afternoon, folks. Tropical temps are with us today and for the week as we watch tropical moisture stream in ahead of Laura down in the Gulf of Mexico. This will become a hurricane soon and head toward Louisiana before lifting toward our region. How much of an impact it has on our weather remains to be seen, but a few subtle changes are showing up in the track.

Let’s kick things off with the local radars to track a few storms across the southeast…

Clusters of storms will roll across the northern and eastern parts of the Ohio Valley on Tuesday. This action may clip the north and northeast. That’s where we have a low-end severe storms risk…

Tropical rain producing showers and storms then look to increase late Wednesday into Thursday as juice streams in ahead of Laura.

Laura has a shot at becoming a major hurricane before coming ashore late Wednesday. The National Hurricane Center continues to paint the entire state in the cone of uncertainty in terms of where the remnants track…

cone graphic

The latest data suggests we may see a faster turn toward the east once this system works up the Mississippi Valley. Notice how the tropical models have shifted into southern Kentucky and Tennessee…

The individual runs of the GFS Ensembles are close to that…

If we look at a couple of the more advanced hurricane models, Laura is a powerhouse as it comes into Louisiana. The HWRF shows the remnant low from this right over Kentucky late Friday and early Saturday…

The HMON has more of that sharp east turn from the tropical model spaghetti plots… 

The operational run of the Euro is a cross between the two models from above and takes the low right on top of the Kentucky/Tennessee border…

The Canadian continues to make the turn right on top of the bluegrass state…

Where this turn happens makes all the difference in the world for us. Areas along and east of the track of the low will have some wild weather to deal with. Heavy rains, high winds and severe storms will all be possible where this happens.

Stay tuned!

I may throw you guys another update later this evening. Have a good one and take care.