Good Monday to one and all. One potent storm system is moving through Kentucky today and this is the opening act to a much bigger storm coming later this week. That system will be a monster of a storm in the days leading up to Halloween and will impact every state east of the Mississippi River.

Let’s kick this party off with what’s going on out there today. For that, let’s break it down with the bullet points:

  • The day starts with a line of strong to, potentially, severe storms racing eastward across Kentucky.
  • This line should decrease in intensity the farther east it gets, but it may still pack some local wind damage with it.
  • The actual cold front sweeps into central Kentucky around the middle of the day and then blasts into eastern Kentucky this afternoon. That’s when another line of strong to severe storms fires up. Eastern Kentucky has the best chance at seeing this action.
  • Winds are a big player ahead of the front with gusts approaching 40mph at times.
  • Temps spike ahead of the front then crash through the 50s and 40s behind it.

Here’s a look at where the Storm Prediction Center is highlighting for the severe threat later today…

Lingering clouds and a few showers may still be an issue on Tuesday, especially early on across central and eastern Kentucky. This will do a number on temps. For areas seeing clouds, you may not get out of the 40s. With some sun, you make it into the 50s.

The Hi Res NAM continues to be most bullish on the clouds and has some of the colder numbers. Check out the 8am-8pm temps from the model…

Tuesday night is likely to feature some cold numbers for areas where skies clear in central and eastern Kentucky. Exactly where the clearing takes place might be a game time decision, but the models are pretty enthusiastic on this happening.

The Hi Res NAM continues to be the coldest of all the models and actually shows 20s in the cold valleys of central Kentucky…

The GFS isn’t as cold, but we can take the under on the numbers it’s spitting out…

The main show arrives in the form of a major fall storm system set to impact us from late Wednesday through Saturday. This is a well-advertised storm here on KWC as it has been on our radar for a long time now. This impacts a lot of real estate…

Here are a few highlights of what to expect:

  • It’s a slow-moving cutoff storm system with nothing to move it along.
  • Rounds of rain will be common during this time with a general 1″-2″ possible.
  • Wind gusts may push 30mph on occasion.
  • Temps will trend down through this period with a day or two possibly staying in the 40s for highs.
  • There’s a chance this system lingers into the start of Halloween. 🎃☔

The pattern after this turns very cold for the first week of November. The GFS 7 day temp anomalies for week one of the new month show the potential…

The Canadian doesn’t go out as far, but gets us through November 3rd and shows even colder anomalies setting up over a much broader area of the country…

Again, the pattern for the first half of November can deliver the first flakes of the season to parts of our region. ❄❄

I will have another update later today and will have the latest on WKYT-TV this afternoon and evening. I leave you with your Monday storm tracking tools…

…

Current watches
Current Watches

Possible Watch Areas

Current MDs

Make it a great Monday and take care.