Good Saturday, everyone. Heat and humidity continue to slowly take control of the weather, but our wet ground and lush vegetation is helping combat the heat. While the steamy temps will be the main weather driver for the weekend, storms will slowly begin to fire back up.
I mentioned the wet ground helping us fight the heat, but just how wet is the ground? The rainfall departures for the year are off the charts…
Many areas of the state are more than 12″ above normal, with some pockets of 20″ above normal. That’s absolutely nuts, but goes along with the pattern we have been forecast now for months.
Temps today range from the upper 80s to low 90s for much of the state, but a dry ground would have given us temps much hotter than that. In terms of the humidity levels, those numbers will be sky high, making it feel much hotter outside. Heat index values can top 100 in the west, with mid and upper 90s central and east.
Isolated storms may try to pop…
Sunday is another steamy day, but the numbers may come down just a smidge with an increase in the storm threat…
Additional showers and storms will then carry over into Monday…
Any storm that goes up will put down some torrential rains. Outside the storms… it’s steamy. This is a trend that rolls on through the rest of your 4th of July week…
Tropical downpours may cause some issues before the week is over. Outside of any storm action, highs continue to run in the upper 80s and low 90s.
Enjoy your Saturday and take care.
I notice on the twelve hour water vapor loop, that the upper level high pressure has now pushed into the Ohio Valley ending the chance for widespread storms and rain. Scattered showers may occur in some areas to my east, especially in areas where there are cold pockets of air aloft.
On yesterday’s date in history back in 2012 was that very interesting and destructive derecho that mostly hit states like Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. However, Kentucky had some damaging winds which prompted several Severe T-storm Warnings…..even though in some cases not a single drop of rain fell!
This derecho occurred a few months after the devastating March 2 2012 tornadoes which hit communities like West Liberty KY and Henryville IN.
KWC post from 2012 about the derecho:
kyweathercenter.com/?p=3621
Let’s try it again…
https://kyweathercenter.com/?p=3621
I had a little wind in Harlan from that particular dercho but stayed dry. Man was it hot leading up to that storm as it was over 100 5 days straight then slowly broke by that weekend when the storms began!
Since the chance for rainfall is extremely low today, I am going to go ahead and post my incredible rainfall statistics for Harlan area (l live a few miles east) for the month of June: Through June 20th, I only had recorded 0.97 inches. For June 21st through June 27th, I recorded 7.62 inches in a 6 day time period! Monthly total through the 30th stands at 8.59 inches. While likely not the wettest June for my part of the state, it still has to rank pretty high up the list and has me over 37 inches for the year-to-date to close out the first half of the year at midnight. If I have recorded 37 inches and am not in the wettest part of the state this year-to-date , some of you have to have over 40 inches so far this year, especially those around 20 inches above average!! Thank the Lord it was a little dry before this past week as I still witnessed some nearby flooding issues!
Your area has exceeded mine in rain fall for the month 7.44 and the last 7 days at 4.53 my yearly total is close to yours however at 36.8.
I am at exactly 37.15 for the year-to-date, so about a 1/3 inch more and very similar weather for sure.
Monthly rainfall for my area of Taylor county was 7.88 ” and for the year 36.72 “. Today it is beginning to dry out.
Very similar for the year-to-date to Andy and me. Interestingly, I remember 2011 was around 70 inches in my area for the entire year, super wet year. We are actually about halfway there statewide. The second half of the year generally averages much less in total rainfall due to the normally drier months of August through November, but anymore, who knows what the rest of this year might bring, especially if we have more tropical systems!
It is stupid hot and humid outside!!!
Just imagine if the ground was dry how hot it would be. Temps topped out here at 95 and heat index of 109
A temperature of 95 with a heat index of 109 is just awful, plain out miserable.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon myself. Other than a day with a ton of rain, I think this is going to be a fairly hot summer. I think we have already had about the same amount, if not more, 90s than last year and we have at least a few more months to accumulate more!
During the heat wave in July 2012 I was in St. Louis when it was 108 with 115 or so heat index.