Good Monday everyone and welcome to the last full week of May. Temps have been taking a walk on the toasty side over the past several days and may flirt with heat wave status by Memorial Day Weekend. We do have a decent break in the action over the next few days as a cold front swings through the state.
This front will touch off scattered showers and storms today and some of these could be strong. Locally heavy rains will be possible from these boomers as they slowly work eastward. Here’s your regional radar to track the action…
Temps today should hit the 80s outside of any shower and thunderstorm that impacts where you live. Cooler air will then move in behind the front with most areas staying in the 70s on Tuesday. There will likely be some leftover showers and storms to deal with… especially in the east.
That’s when the heat begins to build back in. Highs hit the 80s on Wednesday and then take off from there as a heat ridge builds from the plains states into the east. This shows up well on the European Model…
Highs of 90 degrees or better would be possible during the upcoming holiday weekend. This ridge should have some clusters of thunderstorms roaming around its periphery and that is something we will keep an eye on.
Have a great Monday and take care.
A pretty large storm in SE Kentucky has an active warning on it already. Going to probably see quite a bit more this afternoon.
I normally hate the heat, but as hot as it was yesterday, it wasn’t huid and I actually enjoyed it. The past two summers since I have moved back to KY have had a lot more sustained humidity than I remembered. I remember having days or weeks where it would be humid, but not May-Sept like the past two years. Please tell me it will remain relatively not humid this summer.
As we know, severe wx has been strangely absent since the March 2 tornadoes.
But we are close to the time of year in which we can consider another factor. In over a century of recorded history, there have been no tornadoes in Kentucky (and Tennessee) stronger than F3/EF3 from very late May until November. And no twisters stronger than F2/EF2 from about mid-June until October. This is according to the book ‘Significant Tornadoes’ (by Tom Grazulis) and NWS records. So regarding stronger tornadoes, we are approaching the point where we might breathe a little sigh of relief, if not let down our guard completely (even an EF1 can obliterate a mobile home).
While it may not be impossible for an EF4 to hit our area in July, climatology hints this would be a rather rare occurrence. True, we are virtually at the anniversary of the EF5 twister in Joplin MO, even if Joplin is right next to the OK/KS state lines rather than KY/TN.
But by summer, stronger tornadoes tend to shift closer to the Great Lakes and the northern plains. IIRC, neither KY nor TN have had tornado fatalities in July. Even the Louisville twisters of June 22 2011 were EF0s, EF1s and two low-end EF2s.
Of course, there are other summer hazards like flash floods, lightning, heat waves. But after what happened the first three months of 2012, many will happily say good riddance to this year’s peak tornado season.
Thanks for posting this information, it is nice to know. Wish we had a “like” button.
Nothing like a good summer shower/thunderstorm to cool the humidity levels down and make for a nice evening!