While things have been quite comfortable with low dew points the past few days, Tuesday will bring a return of tropical moisture as the low-level flow comes out of the Gulf of Mexico around the departing Southeast ridge. This will increase instability ahead of the strong cold front I mentioned in last week’s posting. A potent line of thunderstorms will move across KY Tuesday night.
The biggest severe threat with these storms will be gusty winds (as opposed to the soaking downpours from Friday night’s storm in Bowling Green). Clouds and possibly showers will linger early Wednesday but a cool and dry air mass will dry things out by the afternoon. The very cool temperatures aloft could possibly produce some diurnal showers on Thursday but the next several days should be very comfortable with plenty of sunshine.
As far as the tropics…the models (GFS and otherwise) are not usually used to forecast tropical weather since tropical and extratropical meteorology is so different. The only skill that the GFS has is when subtropical systems (ie., extratropical dynamics get involved in a tropical environment) are involved. True warm-core tropical systems are forecast from tropical waves and from the local shear environment. This strong cold front should shear apart any activity in the NW Caribbean over the weekend.
