Good Tuesday, everyone. It’s a tropical feeling week across Kentucky, with tropical temps and a few tropical rain producing thunderstorms over the next few days. By the end of the week, the tropics may REALLY come to Kentucky as the remnants of Laura impact our weather. The extent of that impact is still to be determined, but that’s what we are here for.
Let me kick things off with what’s going on out there today. It’s a steamy one with a mix of sun and clouds and just a stray shower or storm going up for most. We will need to watch areas of Indiana and Ohio for a complex of storms to develop late this afternoon into the evening. This will try to dive southeastward and may clip areas of the north and east. The Storm Prediction Center has a low-end risk for severe storms in these areas…
As tropical moisture increases well ahead of Laura for Wednesday and Thursday, clusters of showers and storms will start to increase around here. We will need to watch the setup for Thursday because it could fire up some decent storms with torrential rains.
Now, let’s dive into soon to be Hurricane Laura. This is likely to become a Cat 2 or 3 hurricane by Wednesday as it nears the southwest coast of Louisiana/northeast Texas. Hurricane Watches are out for far these areas and will be upgraded to warnings very soon. Here’s the current forecast from the National Hurricane Center…
The current tropical models continue to bring the remnants right on top of Kentucky and Tennessee…
The GFS is now in agreement with this track…
Some thoughts on the potential impact on our weather…
- The prime time for the greatest impact is Friday and Saturday.
- How much of an impact it has on the weather where you live depends on exactly when this system turns eastward out of the Mississippi Valley.
- A track right across Kentucky would bring the potential for heavy rain, high winds and severe thunderstorms. The greatest concentration of that is right along and just south/east of the spin.
- It may be another day or so before that exact track shows itself, so stay alert to future track updates.
There could be another potent front following this up early next week as we close out August and begin September…
This ain’t your 2019 September pattern taking shape!
I will have another update later in the day. Until then, here are all the tracking tools you need…
Current watches
Possible Watch Areas
Have a happy Tuesday and take care.
Hottest day of the year Monday in the Chicago area… 97 degrees at O’Hare Airport, just three degrees short of the daily record set in 1947. Midway Airport hit 96. The NWS forecast office in the SW suburbs hit 95.
An outflow boundary from a line of thunderstorms currently in Central and Southern Wisconsin is expected to bring slightly cooler weather in the low 90s later today, followed by a resurgence of the heat to the upper 90s Wednesday and Thursday.
Suppose that a silver lining to the long dry spell in your area is that there’s been a good amount of time to clean up and repair roofs in the aftermath of the derecho. Obviously, any heavy rains in the days after the derecho could have been salt to the wounds.
Your current hot weather reminds me about last September’s heatwave here in Tennessee and in Kentucky (even if somewhat more of a dry/low humidity heat) and the “flash drought” that came with it. But now we’re awaiting whatever drenching the remnants of Hurricane Laura will give us. At least Laura’s moisture will move quickly through our area so hopefully any flooding will be short lived. Nevertheless, were still a few weeks from the peak of this very busy Atlantic hurricane season so the tropics could still send us more troubles.
Thanks Mr Bailey for your efforts. Everybody have a great Tuesday.
I think I said this before Mark you really have great information to offer all of us here on KWC.
You mention a while back that Kentucky has a second severe weather season in the Fall. I can’t seem to remember what month that occurs in ?
When I was living in Evansville there was a deadly early morning tornado that occurred in November.
On average, Tennessee, Kentucky and much of the mid-South have November as a secondary peak for severe weather. But this wasn’t really impressed on me until maybe a decade ago when I became a volunteer Skywarn storm spotter with the NWS. As a kid, we at school only practiced tornado safety drills in the spring.
But November 2005 indeed had the F3 tornado that sadly made a direct hit on that Evansville IN mobile home park and an F4 at Madisonville KY. Not to mention the deadly November 2016 twisters in Tennessee and Alabama just after Gatlinburg TN had its horrific fires.
It can still seem counter intuitive to me that our area on average has a minimal if not zero tornado threat during the summer months!
My gosh Mike, that is some stretch of hot and dry weather for your area. I always thought that Lake Michigan would offer some relief from the heat.
Stay safe and cool Mike !
A “wait and see” forecast.
Thanks Chris, This is going to be an interesting tropical storm or maybe a hurricane to tract over the next four or five days. As Which Way is the Wind Blowing says It’s a “wait and see” forecast.
Looking forward to your updates Chris.