Good Friday, folks. Our record setting September continues to throw hot temps and dusty times at the Bluegrass State. As a matter of fact, this looks to continue into the first few days of October before we can finally change it up a bit.
For many cities, this September will go down as the warmest and driest on record. It may also go down as the driest month in recorded history. There’s no such thing as normal any longer. We go from one extreme to the other around here. 🙁
Look at the September departure from normal in terms of rainfall…
What’s interesting is that most of the state is still solidly above normal for the year…
Let’s start things out with today’s forecast and look ahead. Temps are cool to start and toasty to end. Highs this afternoon range from the middle 80s east to 90ish across the west. There is still the small threat for a popcorn shower or storm to go up. But, you know the drill on those…
The heat this weekend and early next week isn’t going to be as dry as what we had for much of the month. Humidity levels will be up and that’s actually some good news because it can cause a shower or storm to develop, especially this weekend. The Hi Res NAM did well with the skimpy rain totals of Friday. Here’s what it shows…
Near record or record highs are possible through the middle of next week, which takes us into the first few days of October. Once into Thursday, a fall cold front looks to charge in from the northwest. That can bring the next chance for showers and storms with much cooler air filtering in for the first weekend of the month…
That certainly looks to FINALLY change the overall pattern, but it’s likely to be a process that averages above normal, just nothing like the insane stuff we are seeing.
The tropics are calming down just a bit with Karen continuing to weaken well east of the Bahamas. Hurricane Lorenzo became the strongest storm on record for this far east in the Atlantic, but looks to stay away from land…
I will still be surprised if we make it through October without another threat or two on the US.
Happy Friday and take care.
Another 7 days of dry agony.
And desert heat. I’m just waiting and watching for Tumbleweeds to start blowing on by.
Random question: when’s the last time Chicago had a drought?
I google that for you MarkLex it was the year 2012.
Schroeder, you are correct, the Chicago area did have a drought during the hot summer of 2012, but that was nothing compared to the historic drought that occurred during the summer of 1988 that affected much of the country. Here’s a link to an article that was written last July to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of that drought:
http://wgntv.com/2018/07/21/the-drought-of-1988-was-the-worst-since-the-dust-bowl/
This is a completely random question, but the old timers around here say if you find a persimmon and cut it in half you will either get the image of a shovel knife or fork and that supposedly lets us know what kind of winter we are in for. Have any of you guys heard this before or done this? Evidently the shovel signifies we will be digging out of all the snow, the knife symbolizes bone cutting chill and the fork from what I understand is basically the same thing as the shovel, just a fun question, I’ve searched for wooly worms and have not seen the first one, I guess I’m overly anxious for snow days….Happy Friday!!!!
Yes, I had in the past with my Grandmother looked at what the persimmon seed had to say about the coming Winter. It pan out as in the Autumn of 1969, the seed said a spoon and my Grandmother told me we are going to have lots of snow this Winter to shovel. Also I found a solid black woolly worm and showed it to my Grandmother and she told me it would be a long cold Winter. Well, that Winter of 1969-70 was one of the snowiest and coldest that lasted well into April. Actually, our first snowstorm came on the first day of Winter and a beautiful White Christmas and New Years Day 1970 occurred. All of this occurred in that small town in southwest Indiana though.
The woolly worms I’ve seen have been all black. I haven’t heard of the persimmon’s being cut into. But I have heard of how high and low the hornets are in the trees on how much snow you will get. I think the higher they are the more snow you will get.
I have seen some persimmons in the area, via a facebook post, that are spoons this year.
Here’s some additional information on the Persimmon seed predictions https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sxsrf=ACYBGNSc4ka6ydT4NhVc9OkhgiWqgYIVdQ%3A1569597393916&source=hp&ei=0SeOXc3xNM2usAWkw4zwCg&q=spoon+in+the+persimmon+seed&oq=In+the+persim&gs_l=psy-ab.1.3.38l2j0i22i30l8.3204.43372..52034…12.0..0.1571.6415.7j10j4j2j7-1j1….2..0….1..gws-wiz…….0j0i13i30j33i160j33i299j0i10.Xadf2Db2by4:
Bus, I’ve not seen any woolly worms here, but they are out there and if they are all black we may have a long very cold Winter. We will see. I was talking about the weather the other day with one of the carpenters that was doing work on my house and he found a fork and a knife in the Persimmon seeds. No telling what that means. LOL
I guess we will just have to wait and see. But were way over due for a cold snowy winter. Somebody might get buried this winter in our area. And I hope it’s powdery snow not wet and heavy.
I’ve heard many of the ole wives tales and while cool and neat to hear, they are just that….”tales”. Last year, for instance, I saw nothing but all black wooly worms (which the “tales” signify a cold snowy winter). Of course the actual result of last winter was overall, very mild and my location picked up only 3 quarters an inch of snow for the entire season.
With the shorter days and the cooler nights. I would say that our Autumn season has arrived, but it is not the Autumns I remember growing up in a small town in southwest Indiana. I think that we could see a colorful display on most of our trees due to lots of sunny, warm and dry days and the cool nights. We shall see. Something to look forward to hopefully.
There will not be a typical colorful display of fall foliage this year due to the lack of rain and the abnormal high temperatures. There are some isolated trees around already going bare due to drought stress.
I saw some dusty drop marks on my truck yesterday so I guess the model forecasts weren’t entirely wrong in that it *did* rain (a few drops).
Miss out on the predicted rain yesterday all together in my county. Looks like we are going down in my county as the driest ever September and the warmest.
How hot has September 2019 been? Based on forecasts for Louisville, I’m projecting the warmest September on record here, easily.
But if you take September 2019 and insert it into other years of Louisville’s 146 year climate record, September (projected) would be the hottest month for 94 of those 146 years, over 64%. Here’s a list just since 1990….
1990; 1992; 1994; 1996; 1997; 1998; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2009; 2013; 2014
You’re are projecting the warmest September on record? Only you? Well you have company. Marc Weinberg, Brian Goode, John Belski, etc etc every meteorologist in Louisville is projecting the same that’s pretty much a given lol
But, something you won’t hear is how this month could have been the hottest month of the year for 64% of Louisville’s climate record. And the projected 1.8 degree difference between September’s soon-to-be hottest and second hottest average temperature nearly doubled the number of years to 94, from 46-48, that would make this September the hottest month for those years.
I can definitely see a pattern there Mike S. The Atlantic Ocean has been getting warmer since 1990 or maybe after 1978. I’ve studied this for a number of years, but just can’t get a good hold on WHY this is occurring. Also the Gulf of Mexico has been warming. This is why we are not having the typical Autumn weather but a continued Summer time pattern and a late Winter that doesn’t last more than week or two. Will it change back ? Yes, I believe it will, but no one knows when this will occur. It would be a good study for a research meteorologist.
Oceans are warming because greenhouse gases are causing the earth as a whole to warm and since the oceans are part of earth, they are warming as well.
This September has been so hot because of a stubborn high pressure over the se US preventing cooler air from entering the area combined with a dry ground.
Unfortunately, the billion gallons of ice melting everyday in Greenland is not cooling the ocean waters.(lol)
So, theoretically, the next decade should feature more of the same, a continual increase in global land and water temperatures because of greenhouse gases?
I have proof from a few climate records that show some decades were warmer than others and cooler than others like the 1960s cooldown, the 1930s hot and dust era, 2010s melting pot(sea ice reduction), periods of up and down cycles, not one gradual warm up over the last several decades as greenhouse gas concentrations increase.
I’m suggesting the next decade will be cooler than this decade, maybe not ice age material, but all part of the up and down cycle nonetheless.
Don’t get me wrong. Greenhouse gas concentrations especially CO2 have steadily climbed over the last several decades. No denying that. One of my faves is the reading from Hawaii’s Mauna Loa…
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
97% of climate scientists from around the world, many of which don’t work for governments / have an agenda, all agree that global warming is real and is caused by the excessive burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent greenhouse effect. These are scientists far smarter than any of else, who aren’t blinded by political and religious beliefs, but base their evidence on pure facts gathered from years of intense study. Yet people will still deny that global warming exists and will simply label it as government and media propaganda. So sad what we are doing to this planet and ourselves all in the name of money and greed. The best thing that will come centuries from now as a result of anthropogenic global warming is an eradication of the human animal species from this planet.
Yes the same scientists were also saying the oceans level would rise enough to cover our coastal cities by the turn of this century. That hasn’t materlize as of today. Yes I believe mankind has done some damage to our climate but not the extreme that the money , political and scientists are saying. The weather comes in cycles as long this earth has existed. Now there saying there’s a possibility of a cool down period due the sun spots is coming to its cycle starting later this fall and kick in high gear in 2020. Some scientists are saying it could last for a decade or longer. In my lifetime as a teenager we experience the coldest and snowest winters back in the late 70″s that we haven’t had no winters match those since then. Who knows we may or may not see those type of winters again .
The turn of the century is 80 years away. Don’t forget, global warming is a long term catastrophe. It’s cumulative over many decades. Read about what’s currently going on right now with Mount Blanc in Italy if you want to see an example of what a rapidly warming planet is causing. Scary stuff, especially if one lives near one of these regions experiencing the effects of excessive, unnatural warming. If you want to see the visible damage being caused by global warming, go visit areas where ice and glaciers are present (or use to be) and talk to the locals about it. Otherwise, simply sitting on the sidelines as an armchair quarterback and just saying it’s a natural cycle because of a lack of an understanding of the science of the greenhouse effect, isn’t contributing anything to solving the long term crisis underway.
Schroeder I think a knife means bone chilling cold and a fork is a mild winter, so who knows? We just have to wait and see
This link is somewhat dated, but still an amazing video. If anyone posted/Tweeted it earlier on this blog, my bad.
https://twitter.com/JustinRothWX/status/1175789221317107714
An impressive dust devil last weekend near Oak Grove KY not far of Bowling Green (no really, this is not New Mexico or Arizona where one may more expect dust devils 😉 ). Multiple fire departments were trying to contain a brush fire.
I earlier meant to post about it being 30 years since Hurricane Hugo striking South Carolina, but Chris Bailey had an excellent Tweet which was better than anything I could have put up. Just as well, as things have been busy on my end and I forgot.
I was only five when Hugo hit, so I have no real memory of that storm. Unlike 1992’s Hurricane Andrew which was rather unsettling for me to see on tv the scary aftermath for days on end.
Could see the huge thunderstorm clouds and lightning bolts off to the south all the way here in LEX. So close yet so far…