After a nice Monday that saw temperatures climb into the upper-60s, rain showers will enter the area on Tuesday evening.Tonight should be quite clear across south central Kentucky, allowing for radiative cooling to drop our low temperature into the mid-40s. We begin tomorrow clear and sunny across the region. Clouds, however, will begin rolling into the area during the afternoon hours, keeping our high temperature down around 60. By about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, spotty showers will develop over south central Kentucky. While the upper-level support is not at all impressive, a significant vorticity maximum at 500 mb will track from our southwest into the region and should provide enough lift to produce some rain showers. I don’t anticipate that these will be soakers though since the winds at 850 mb will be very light, meaning that our area will be cut-off from any major moisture sources. Once the rain showers move off to the northeast, around a quarter inch of rain will have fallen across the area. The overnight low in the low-50s on Tuesday will be regulated somewhat by cloudy skies. Wednesday is shaping up to be quite nice for us, as sunshine and clear skies will dry us out and raise the high temperature to near 70.
Meanwhile out in the west, a serious-looking jet streak of 150+ knots will be diving south along the Pacific coast during the day on Tuesday. This streak will carve out a very strong trough over the southwest. The insuing meridional pattern appears to be so deep that the 540 thickness line may reach the Mexican border along Arizona and New Mexico by Wednesday. This trough, on top of some significant vorticity and a strong low-level jet, will develop and track northeastward where it will produce severe weather during the day on Thursday across eastern Oklahoma and Texas.
It remains to be seen just how potent this storm system will be for us on Friday. At this time, it appears that the strong jet streak mentioned above will have reached the eastern leg of the trough by Thursday, meaning it will help raise the trough back into a more zonal pattern. This would certainly hamper our chances at thunderstorms and severe weather.
Check back in on Wednesday for an updated look at this developing weather scenario.
