ABC 36 Stormteam

Good Friday morning, folks!

It will be a cool Friday with lots of clouds and some occasional, light, isolated showers keeping temperatures down quite a bit. Take a look at the WRF’s forecast for 2 PM temperatures (yellow is 60s, orange is 70s):

We’re shooting for a fallish high temperature of 74 in Lexington today.

Lawns are toasted. Ponds and creeks are running low. There’s no doubt, we need some serious rain, especially here in central Kentucky where we missed out on southern Kentucky’s heavy rain event about three weeks ago.

Well, we are going to get some rain, but the cost will be that we’ll have to sacrifice Saturday. There will likely be some showers and potentially even a storm or two on Saturday afternoon, around the time UK kicks off against Western Kentucky University at Commonwealth Stadium.

Here’s the big picture this Friday morning.

Moisture from what was once Tropical Storm Hermine is sliding into the area from west to east. The center of low pressure, leftover from the decaying tropical system is near the bootheel of southeastern Missouri, and it is slowly pushing eastward. Meanwhile, an aggressive September cold front is poised to advance from the northern Plains. Hermine’s remnants will be here tonight into early Saturday. The cold front will produce additional showers and thunderstorms later on Saturday… it’s a one-two punch that should benefit our lawns and plants.

As far as anticipated rainfall totals, here is the latest from this morning’s 06z guidance.

The WRF model is a bit of a nailbiter, with a tight gradient in rainfall totals ranging from pockets of NO rain in northern Kentucky to pockets of more than 2″ in parts of Harlan and Cumberland Counties.

The GFS model is a little less excitable, with a more even distribution of rain, but the opposite areas highlighted for the heaviest amounts. The GFS indicates a little under 0.50″ in parts of southern Kentucky, but a bullseye of 1.31″ near Winchester or Mount Sterling.

Courtesy: Penn State University Dept. of Meteorology

If you’re headed out for high school football this evening, or to Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday, you may want to take the rain gear!

Have a spectacular start to the weekend.

Geoff

Good Thursday morning…. thanks for stopping by the weather blog.

We’ll have a beautiful day today with cool weather, plenty of sunshine, and some gradually advancing cirrus clouds. Highs will run slightly cooler than average, peaking around 78 degrees this afternoon.

Off to our west, the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine continue to spin across the eastern Plains and Ozark Mountains. The red in Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas on the following map shows vorticity, which is a measure of spin, associated with the decaying tropical beast.

Courtesy: Penn State University Dept. of Meteorology

Upper-level winds will gradually push the remnants of Hermine east, eventually reaching Kentucky on Saturday. While the former tropical system is losing much of it’s moisture, Hermine’s leftovers will interact with a front here in Kentucky on Friday night and Saturday, so that should help to sustain enough rain production to benefit our lawns, at least to some degree.

Details are still tricky, in terms of who will receive how much rainfall. To give you a sense of the scope in rainfall totals, here is the latest GFS forecast for total rainfall through the entire weekend.

Courtesy: Penn State University Dept. of Meteorology

Notice the small area of purple near Frankfort – that’s just under 0.10″ total. Meanwhile, near Maysville, the GFS is able to produce about 0.75″ through the weekend. **One thing is sure: we shouldn’t take the rainfall distribution literally.** This is just one model’s forecast. It does give us a pretty good idea of the scope of what one could expect…. as little as a tenth of an inch of rain, to up to three quarters of an inch of rain. Most of that will occur on Saturday.

Travelling thousands of miles to our east and southeast, a new tropical storm has formed: Tropical Storm Igor is spinning near the southern Cape Verde islands, just barely moving. At mid-morning, it is drifting north at 2 mph, but it should eventually curve westward. Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for the southernmost Cape Verde islands.

The large landmass on the right side of the map is western Africa. We’ll keep our eyes on that one…. plenty of time and thousands of miles stand between Igor and the East Coast.

Have a spectacular Thursday.
Geoff

After the flooding rain in early May across Kentucky, we continued with flash flooding concerns across the state for the summer. Across Kentucky June rainfall totals were above normal. And that trend continued for many locations into July. But as the hot summer wore on, the spigot was turned off for the Bluegrass region of Kentucky during the month of August.

Here is the summer breakdown in rainfall across the viewing area:

Lexington:

Summer 2010 rainfall total: 11.23″

Average: 12.20″

June: 4.59″, July: 6.06″, August: .058″

As of writing this blog entry, Lexington has only had 4 days with measurable rainfall since July 31st!  A soaking rain is needed across central Kentucky.

Frankfort:

Summer Total: 12.75″

Summer Average: 11.71″

June: 5.29″, July: 6.26″, August: 1.20″

Jackson:

Summer Total: 12.45″

June: 5.60″, July: 3.34″, August: 3.51″

Jackson was only down 0.62″ for the month a August, a different story than central Kentucky.

London:

Summer Total: 14.48″

June: 3.85″, July: 4.60, August: 6.03″

August was actually the wettest summer month in south central Kentucky. There were several rain events, including a flash flooding episode in London-Corbin. London officially had 4 days in August with at least a 0.50″ rain.

After the crippling flood in early May, flash flooding was a major problem this summer across Kentucky. On July 21st 4″-9″ of rain fell over Carter, Fleming, Lewis and Mason counties. One woman was killed when her motor home was swept away. Flash flooding was also reported in Berea on July 27th. Then in Corbin on Aug. 18th.

Although not in the viewing area, it is also worth noting that in July, Pike County in extreme eastern Kentucky, had severe flash flooding that killed 2 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and crippled the roadways throughout the rural county.

At this point a drought is not officially in effect, although Abnormally Dry conditions are being reported by the US Drought Monitor in northern Kentucky:

Have a great evening,

Jennifer Schack

I hope you’ve all had a great Labor Day. Our weather has been absolutely gorgeous this weekend, but down in South Texas and northern Mexico, it’s a very different story this Monday night as Tropical Storm Hermine is making landfall.

Here she is as of 8:20 PM on Labor Day.

The storm, which just matured from a tropical depression earlier today, is producing torrential rain, gusty winds and a storm surge. Some parts of South Texas and northern Mexico will receive 6″ to 12″ of rain over the next couple of days as the tropical storm eventually weakens over land. Tropical Storm force winds are being felt in parts of coastal Texas and Mexico this evening. The storm surge will be between 2 and 4 feet just to the north of the point of landfall late this evening, causing some coastal flooding.

The 8 PM Eastern / 7 PM Central stats, and projected track, are as follows…

In a roundabout way, the dissipating tropical disturbance over the southern Plains will only serve to draw more moisture out of the Gulf at the end of this next week. That moisture will interact with a slow-moving front across the Tennessee Valley at the end of the workweek, and we may finally see some substantial rain around here come Friday.

For our forecast leading up to that point, head over to our primary weather page.

Geoff

Good Sunday evening, folks. I hope you’re enjoying your extended weekend.

This morning, we got all the way down to 47 degrees in Lexington. That was our lowest temperature since May 20th. For a sense of perspective, we were 14 degrees below our average low of 61, but 2 shy of our record low of 45, set in 1997.

Tonight will be another chilly night, with readings running 10 to 12 degrees below normal. We should bottom out around 50 early on Labor Day morning thanks to clear skies overnight tonight.

Courtesy: Penn State Univ. Dept. of Meteorology

After a cool start, sunshine will rapidly boost us up into the middle 80s – that’s about a 35 degree rise from morning to afternoon. Lexington should climb to 85.

Monday will be dry, region-wide, but by Tuesday evening, a cold front will approach from the northwest, sparking some isolated showers and thunderstorms. Here is the latest GFS forecast for rainfall between 8 PM on Tuesday and 2 AM on Wednesday.

Courtesy: Penn State Univ. Dept. of Meteorology

We need the rain, and Tuesday night into Wednesday’s little round of showers and thunderstorms will not provide as much as we could use, but rain chances will increase as we approach the end of the week. That’s thanks to the same front, which will stall south of KY on Thursday, then return with increasing amounts of moisture on Friday into Saturday.

Happy Labor Day!

Geoff

The meteorological summer ran from Jun 1st – Aug. 31st.  And we’ll remember the summer of 2010, for the heat. In Lexington and Frankfort it was the 5th hottest summer on record! Neither city set any record high temperatures, but each city did achieve 3 record warmest low temperatures. In Jackson several record high temperatures were reached, and we ended the summer with the 3rd hottest on record. London also had several new record highs with the 2nd hottest summer on record.

Here are all the specifics:

Average Temp:     Departure:      Rank:

Lexington:             77.6                        +3.2                5

Frankfort:              77.8                        +4.5                5

Jackson:                 76.4                        +3.0                3

London:                 77.1                         +3.1                2

Stay tuned for the Rainfall Review for the summer.

Have a great evening,

Jennifer