Thursday, May 31, 2018  Noon

After a largve production of heavy/severe thunderstorms in the central plains overnight, two distinct developments today as that energy moves east.

1).  A pulse of upper energy is moving rapidly eastward and is creating a developing strong cluster of storms over southern Illinois. This system is expected to expand eastward across southern Indiana and extreme northern Kentucky over the next few hours.  Some severe thunderstorms are likely this afternoon.  Primary threat will be brief, strong gusty winds.  Smaller threat will be hail.  If everything develops as expected, the cluster of storms will move through the Louisville area from about 2 P.M. to 3:30 P.M.

2).  The “main event” from the midwestern system is expected to develop later this afternoon and reach our area tonight.  Best time for us looks like 8 P.M. until Midnight.  Again, strong, gusty winds will be primary threat.  This time, however, the storms are expected to be more widespread.

NOTE:  How this afternoon’s storms play out could have a significant say in how tonight’s system develops. I’ll have an update on that later.