Good Friday, everyone. The month of June is here and is starting out on a very familiar theme with scattered storms and steamy temps hanging around. That action continues into the weekend, but the pattern looks to change up as we head into next week. This is when cooler air settles into our part of the world.
Before we look ahead, let’s take a quick look back at a weird May. Many cites finished up with the hottest May on record. The same will likely be said for the state as a whole once the final numbers are completed in the next few weeks. It was also one of the wettest Mays on record for several cities.
Here’s an amazing stat for Lexington. Since 2012, we have had the hottest February (and 2nd hottest), the hottest March, the hottest April, and the Hottest May on record.
Meteorological Spring was about as wild as you are ever going to see it. Some highlights:
- Record snows fell in March and April.
- March and April were both much colder than normal and among the coldest on record.
- May featured historic warmth and is the warmest May ever recorded.
- The severe weather season was nearly non-existent. We only had a handful of days from March through May featuring actual severe weather watches.
All of that follows a record cold stretch in January, with frequent snows, and a record warm and wet February that featured more severe weather than May.
Ok… Let’s talk about where we go from here.
Scattered showers and storms will be noted across the region today and a few could be strong early on. That said, we shouldn’t be dealing with the severity of the storms from Thursday. The overall threat from the Storm Prediction Center isn’t that great…
Saturday should see a dip in the storm action early in the day, but more storms may develop later in the day. Those storms may bring the severe weather threat back into parts of western and central Kentucky through Saturday night. Here’s the Saturday Severe Weather Outlook from the SPC…
Those storms rumble through quickly on Sunday morning, with much cooler and better air coming in behind this as a noreaster looking system develops…
This air hangs tough into early next week, when we may string together a few days in the 70s for highs. The GFS event takes our lows way down by Tuesday morning…
The setup for later next week into the following week may be one that sends storm clusters our way from the northwest.
Speaking of storm clusters, I have you all set to do some tracking…
Make it a good one and take care.
Our climate is certainly changing. It might not be so impossible to imagine snow in summer. I wonder at what point our plant hardiness zone calendar and map will change. At this rate, it very well could be in my lifetime.
Our climate is certainly changing. It might not be so impossible to imagine snow in summer. I wonder at what point our plant hardiness zone calendar and map will change. At this rate, it very well could be in my lifetime.
We missed most of the action yesterday in Harlan but still hit an inch on the day and brought the May total to almost 5 inches for the month with more storms about hit this morning. The temp average was over 71 here for the month. I believe Louisville was the hottest from what I could find at over 76 degrees in that heat island! Warmer than a normal June in a few spots for the May average☺
I ended up with 3.67 for the month 1.25 fell yesterday.
Thanks Chris for the update. Your blog this morning on the past weather statistics is very interesting to say the lease. Yesterday’s storms past through northern Taylor county with very heavy rains in the the late afternoon and some lighter rains in the very late evening. Wind was not an issue anytime in yesterday’s storms in my area of Taylor County. The wind damage along and north of the Ohio River was unreal and so widespread, more than I’ve seen in years. I hope those that have property damage from yesterday’s storms get their lives back to normal real soon. Next week’s weather looks more like spring than summer ? Have a great day everyone.
Looking forward to drier cooler days. Soooo sick of the July humidity.
Thanks Chris. We had a couple of real good storms overnight into this morning. Since then it’s been partly to mostly cloudy but no precipitation. Next week looks really nice! Looking forward to that, too. Have a great Friday everyone.