Plenty of sunshine will be hanging around today and tomorrow in Kentuckiana as we continue to be affected by the dry air behind the cold front that came through on Sunday night. Almost cloudless skies will be the norm until we head into Wednesday night. Since we do have this dry air in place, temperatures will easily rise into the lower to mid 90's again across the region today and the mid 90's tomorrow. The bad news here is that most places still need more rain but luckily some is on the way.
A stormy pattern is in store for Wednesday night through Friday. These storms will come from a one-two punch. The first punch will be on Wednesday night into Thursday morning as a fairly weak disturbance moves east across the Mississippi River. This will spur scattered showers and storms across the area but particularly in our western counties during the overnight hours between Wednesday and Thursday. Throughout the day on Thursday as this disturbance continues to push eastward we'll hold on to a chance for scattered storms. Some of these storms on Thursday morning could be a little strong with gusty winds and heavy rain.
The second punch Thursday evening into Friday morning will be more potent. A sharp shortwave trough from the Northern Plains will be swinging through the Ohio Valley during this period. This feature and a cold front that will be moving through on Thursday night into Friday will bring our best chance for storms.
Even though winds aloft will be enough for severe storms, a lack of moisture near the surface and the overnight timing will keep things from getting too out of hand. Even with these limiting factors there's a possibility that some of these storms will go severe with damaging winds. Because of this possibility the Storm Prediction Center has placed the northern half of Kentucky and all of Southern Indiana under a Slight Risk of severe weather on Thursday into Friday morning.
Once we get this cold front out of the way later on Friday we'll see an abnormally cool and dry air mass for this time of year flow in from the north. High pressure over the Midwest on Friday and Saturday will help drive this cooler wedge of air south into Kentuckiana. Temperatures on both Friday and Saturday should top out near 80 degrees. Lows on Friday night and Saturday night will be near 60, but some folks in outlying areas will get down into the 50's. That's quite a welcome change from the heat and humidity we're used to this time of year!
This is my last day at WAVE 3 as an intern since classes start soon for me at Mississippi State. It has been an absolute pleasure to come in and work with the WAVE 3 Storm Tracking Team over the past few weeks. I've learned quite a bit from this great group and I'm happy that I was able to give back by creating the boxes full of useful link buttons you see at the top of each post here and by writing blog posts each day that I've been in the office. I've also done quite a bit of weather forecasting and some "intern" work too (surprisingly nobody has asked me to get them coffee). It's no wonder that WAVE 3 leads the way in weather after all the innovation and hard work I've seen during my short time here. Meteorology can be a tough field but these guys make it look easy. Thanks again to Kevin, Lauren, Brian, Christie, and Andy for being such great mentors!
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Ryan Hoke
WAVE 3 Storm Tracking Team Intern
You did a great job Ryan, enjoyed reading your very informitive post. Best of Luck
Posted by: Steve P. | August 07, 2012 at 01:45 PM
Good luck Ryan.
Posted by: Southern Indiana Weather | August 13, 2012 at 06:33 PM