Good Friday to one and all. June has been a rather wet month across Kentucky, so it’s appropriate to end it by tracking storms across the region. These boomers are part of a pattern that will keep rounds of storms going into early July, possibly having an impact on those 4th of July Plans.
Today’s storms will be rather scattered early on, but better coverage may develop this evening into tonight. A line of thunderstorms may press our way from the west and northwest during this time, and some of them may be strong across the north and west.
Here’s the day one severe weather outlook from the Storm Prediction Center, along with your tracking toys…
A cold front settles in here on Saturday with additional showers and storms around. Once again, some could be strong or severe. The SPC outlook for Saturday…
In addition to the threat for local severe weather, these storms will pack a heavy rain punch. That could cause some local high water issues.
The front will then hang around the region through the middle of next week, keeping our storm chances going. Those storm chances will include the 4th of July on Tuesday. After this a disturbance tries to dive in from the northwest…
The models are then hinting at another cool down next weekend…
Now that June is wrapping up, let’s look back at the temps for the first month of summer. Much of Kentucky will finish below normal…
Make it a great day and take care.
Cheers to all. Life is good.
I am digging the cool weather.
Out for a walk this morning, beginning to feel very uncomfortable, but it looks like the showers will stay away for today.
I guess the Climate Prediction Center does not use the Canadian GEM; the entire U.S. mainland is forecast to be above normal for the July 7-13 period. It looks wetter than normal too.
We don’t get thunderstorms like we did in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember a few thunderstorms a week in the spring and summer. Now in Louisville, he number of thunderstorms in the last 10 years has dropped in frequency. Weekly cold fronts would have the southwestern sky black as the lines moved through. Climate change is real, no doubt.
Before I started collecting rain for my garden, I used to measure how many ‘thunder days’ I would get to better forecast how my garden might perform. A thunder day had to have at least a trace of rain or else I could not count it. We had over 50 thunder days last year, not bad. This year, we’re actually ahead of last year’s number for this date.
I think there may have been some memorable storms for that time period of the 80’s and 90’s. One from the late 90’s is my all-time most memorable weather event ever. A close encounter with a bolt of lightning. Standing on my porch, I was fascinated by all of the lightning basically surrounding my house but with no rain. Then, I heard a sizzling, hissing sound, like the sound of a gas leak. I turned in the direction of the sound and saw a purplish column of what looked like thin smoke ascending from the ground. By the time it reached about 8-10 feet above the ground, a bolt of lightning connected with the ‘leader’, with a crack and a thunderclap, really, like someone clapping their hands together except on a larger level. I measured the distance later and found it was only 60 feet away from my position.
Looks like we might get a fast drive-by storm later this evening.