Good Monday everyone and welcome to a brand new week that will actually feature anything but brand new weather. After a mainly nice weekend… the heat is back and will it will really crank up over the next few days. Our saving grace will come with some thunderstorms for the middle and end of the week and this will offer us some relief. If you are looking for something a little more permanent… then the longer range offers some hope.

In the short term… it is just flat out hot. In looking around at some other forecasts… something interesting hit me. I appear to be on the hot side of the forecast spectrum over the next few days. It appears some are suffering from a “burned child fears fire” syndrome. Basically… after a summer of mostly busting on the hot side… I am seeing a lot of scaling back of temps over the next few days. This happens as I am going in the opposite direction… go figure!  Yes I think the heat will outdo many forecasts this go around.

Today should see most of central and eastern Kentucky in the low and mid 90s while the west will sizzle with mid and upper 90s. Some areas will hit 100 or better in the far west. Tuesday will feature more of the same with generally middle 90s for many and a chance for some areas to reach the upper 90s. Western parts of the state will see 100 again. The ONLY thing that would keep these temps from being realized would be an increase in shower or thunderstorm action or some clouds from upstream action.

Speaking of showers and storms… they should be on the increase as we roll into later Wednesday then should really ramp up for Thursday and Friday. Temps on Wednesday have a serious bust potential. If the sun wins the battle… look out. If the storms are more dominant… then some “cooler” air would prevail. Temps for Thursday and Friday would come down big time because of the showers and storms around. We will continue to watch the Gulf of Mexico for possible tropical development. Whatever is down there may end up throwing up some moisture our way later in the week.

The heat will make another run at is this weekend before we start to see our pattern begin to change as we get into next week. The big heat ridge will try to head well out west as cooler air from Canada works into the central and eastern part of the country. You can see that here on the Canadian Model…

That is a nice trough digging in and a quick look at the new European Model finds it in strong agreement. The GFS Ensembles are also on board for a change. The map below is of the 850mb temp anomalies for days 11-15 from now…

You can see the heat goes to the west and MUCH cooler air engulfs much of the eastern half of the country. Keep cooler weather hope alive!!

Have a great Monday and stay cool… take care.