Since the forecast rarely changes in August, I'm only going to update this post on the weekdays until September unless there is something tropical brewing or a reason to update. I'll update this first post with the forecast, both long and short term. As a general rule, up to 7 days is a pretty accurate forecast, beyond that it's educated guessing and largely dependent upon how well the models are doing at that moment, which is why I call it "voodooland." If you have any specific weather questions or comments, even if it's for an area other than WDW, please post and I'll answer throughout the thread. I'll also post weather tidbits every so often. If you want to see the exact conditions for your travel dates over the last few years, go to our historic weather page in Info Central here. Without further delay, let's get to the forecast:

Weather at WDW - Updated Wednesday pm, August 31, 2011
Not much change over the next few days. Today through Monday temps will run 90-92 with pop up thunderstorms each day. Tuesday and Wednesday will be 91-93. Lows will be 75-75 each day. The is a possibility of tropical mischief this weekend popping up the Gulf, but right now the vast majority of the 12z models have a tropical storm moving in somewhere between Louisiana and Alabama, which would mean no impact for WDW. We'll have to see how it develops as some models to bring it into the Florida panhandle. If there is impact from this potential storm it wouldn't be heavy, just some rain and a little wind, and would occur Monday and or Tuesday.

Long range...Nothing really changes in voodooland either. Highs should stay in the low 90s with lows in the mid 70s and about a 1 in 3 chance of a pop up thunderstorm each day. The GFS 12z run shows another major hurricane heading towards the East Coast, but turning away from Florida at the last moment Sept 14-16. That is, of course, total voodoo, but it also shows we're a long way from being finished with this very active hurricane season.

Travel Impact
No issues this afternoon and I don't foresee any issues for tomorrow.

Any of you who are nervous about flying, especially related to turbulence, go here and here to learn a lot about turbulence. Those two articles should be very helpful in allowing you to understand turbulence and flight safety when it hits. Hopefully all of this will help you relax and enjoy the trip to WDW more!

Tropics
LEE? Confidence is high that the tropical wave in the Northwest Caribbean becomes Tropical Storm Lee at some point late this week or over the holiday weekend. How strong it gets, and where it goes will be the subject of great weeping and gnashing of teeth in coming days. Look at the models and you will see pure model madness; the 06Z GFS brings the system toward the big bend region of Florida late in the weekend, which would mean some impact for WDW. The 06Z ECMWF, however, takes it toward the coast of Texas. Now, when I'm talking "impact" I'm talking a little wind and rain. Nothing major. Gut feeling here says it could be an issue for the Central Gulf Coast, somewhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, by the middle of next week. There will be wild speculation, but nobody knows right now how this will all play out. There's a possibility for lots of rain by the first of next week or none at all. I'll keep you posted as things develop and I (and the NHC) get a better handle on it.

KATIA: The tropical storm currently packing 65 mph winds in the Central Atlantic is expected to become a major hurricane over the weekend north of Puerto Rico. Most global models recurve Katia over the open Atlantic, not impacting the East Coast of the U.S. However, those on the island of Bermuda will need to keep up with developments since the track could be close to them. A couple of models this morning turned Katria more west, towards the Caribbean. For now, those seem like outliers and not probable, but I'll keep a watch on it. The track is definitely not set in stone yet and, as I've mentioned before, major hurricanes sometimes do their own thing, regardless of steering currents.

Click here to see WDW's 2011 Hurricane Policy.