Good Saturday, folks. As a Friday night shower maker quickly clears the area early this morning, our Saturday is looking pretty darn nice. Unfortunately, that’s not going to last very long because rounds of rain are on the way for the next few days. Heavy rainfall is once again a good likelihood.
Let us begin with today and roll forward. Showers should be to our east before sun up, with temps dropping into the middle 30s where skies clear. Another kiss of frost is likely, giving us back to back mornings with frost.
Clouds will increase from southwest to northeast later today as temps stay in the 50s. There’s even the chance for a little residual cloud cover for much of the day for some, If that’s the case, take the under on the numbers.
What’s left of Pacific Hurricane Sergio is crossing out of Mexico and into Texas early today, with the hurricane models still picking up on the remnant low, bringing it toward us later Sunday…
That’s just amazing to see a remnant tropical low move that quickly (or at any speed) from the Pacific to Kentucky. Folks, these are strange weather times we are living in.
This system brings a surge of rain in here tonight and Sunday, with waves of heavy rain continuing through Monday…
As that system departs, it leaves behind some pretty nice fall weather for later Tuesday through Thursday. Frosty mornings are likely for both Wednesday and Thursday, but the afternoons look really good with below normal temps.
Another system works in from the southwest as we head into next weekend. That will help unleash an even colder air mass…
That cold shot could very well put an official end to the growing season.
The longer range ensembles continue to try to spit out some flakes across our region before the month is over…
We will see how that works out, but it’s interesting to see various runs from different models hinting at that possibility.
Have a great Saturday and take care.
Thanks Chris. Headed home this morning. Hoping for dry weather to travel on and it looks like we will be good. Seems like we are going from one extreme to another. Coming out of the sunshine state is really going to feel like culture shock! But, oh well. We will take what we get and be happy for it!. Have a great Saturday everyone!
Noteworthy stat (or not) is Lexington’s all-time record high of 126 Cooling Degree Days for October and 1735 Cooling Degree Days for the year. This often-not used barometer combines the high and low temperatures and averages them. Any day throughout the year when the average temperature exceeds a base of 65 degrees, the excess number of degrees above that base forms a cumulative total.
How many calendar days has this 65-degree base average been exceeded? We are presently at 158 days, good enough for 3rd all time so far.
What do we take away from this? Although it has not been one of the hottest years, at least from a daytime perspective, the overnight low temperatures may be to blame since they have been running at record warm levels, helping to skew the average not just this month but for the whole year.
Yeah, the lows were incredibly warm from May through 10th of October and the month of February! This is only Harlan’s 2nd night in the 40s since early May with just a handful of 50s. All other lows were 60s and higher which is very warm here considering we have zero heat island effect like Louisville,
Lexington, etc.
Now, we are going below average but I think October will be ruined by the first 10 days of extreme heat, preventing a below average “monthly” departure by the 31st. It may be cool enough to knock the average down below a top 10 warmest month but will be hard to reach historical average unless we can achieve some very cold days after next week!
Thank you, Mike, for explaining that. That’s a stat I never really focused on much because I wasn’t sure what it was. I’ve always seen that in the stats (heating/cooling degree days) but I never really understood how the #’s were calculated.
It’s actually used as a measure for estimating energy demand somehow.