Monday, July 12, 2010

7/12 - 9pm - So Where Did All That Rain Go? / 100 Degrees

We had quite a soaking over the weekend in most places around Louisville, but I was really expecting today to be the bigger event. As the term "chance" implies, some forecasts succeed while others fail. A few scattered storms formed last night in Western Indiana that were expected to become more widespread and hit Kentuckiana this morning, but they simply couldn't get organized. The rain that formed this afternoon (as you can see in the left radar image) stayed to our south, but storms that are developing in Missouri and West Kentucky right now may have enough juice to make it here early tomorrow morning. We definitely can't say that moisture will be a limiting factor in the evolution of these storms as dew points right now in Louisville are in the lower 70's. That's pretty humid! We'll see another rain chance on Tuesday before a cool front passes through on Wednesday. You would think that temperatures would decrease after the passage of a cool front, but hot air will rapidly build back into the area after it goes through. Temperatures will soar into the middle and upper 90's for Wednesday and Thursday respectively.

We may have had some rain this weekend, but overall the ground is still pretty dry in Louisville. Soil moisture levels have quite an influence on the air temperature, but they're especially crucial when you're talking about the heat of summer. If we don't see any rain tonight and tomorrow, I have a feeling that 100 degrees won't be too far from our grasp. A location or two, most likely in an area with lots of concrete, could get within a degree of 100 on Thursday. Next week has more potential in my mind because there is no appreciable rain in the computer models for the entire week and high pressure to our east will cause hot air from the south to flow into our neck of the woods. Should be interesting to see how it develops!

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