Good Friday, folks. We are coming off a wild Thursday that brought tornadoes and damaging winds to much of the bluegrass state. The storms were ahead of a strong cold front now to our east and a much colder pattern is settling into our part of the world.
Before looking ahead, let’s talk about those winds on Thursday. Winds were pushing close to 70mph in several areas, giving us some of the strongest non-thunderstorm winds to ever hit the region. Lexington had a 69mph gust with Louisville checking in at 67mph.
Fast forward to today and things are still windy, but nothing like what we had yesterday. Today’s winds are northwesterly and much colder with temps generally in the 40s. Clouds will also thicken as the day wears on with a few showers possible late. There’s even a slight chance for a snowflake tonight…
Sunday is another windy day with a slight recovery in temps as we watch a weak system dive in from the northwest. That may bring a shower with it and could whittle a few degrees off the thermometer for Monday. From there, a stronger system tries to dig in by the middle of the week. Can that hook up with a system in the Gulf or in the southeast? Maybe, but the models aren’t really seeing it.
The Canadian…
New GFS
Enjoy your Friday and take care.
We are literally in a totally different weather region down here in Harlan which I have preached about for years. I had very little rain and almost no wind other than some light breezes yesterday evening. Just like when almost the entire state gets snow, it skips down here. But, when we get flooded or actually get a decent snow, the rest of the state generally gets next to nothing!
When I lived in Brevard NC, I never understood how the mountains affect when we would have wind or not. For example, Asheville, just north of Brevard would have winds at night and day, but Brevard would only have winds during the day, but it would be dead calm at night. On the 11 pm news forecast, you could see the winds blowing the flags like crazy in Asheville while it was just as calm as could be in Brevard. But then, one night the entire region had a high wind warning and the winds howled all night EVERYWHERE, similar to what we had yesterday. I remember it did damage the next day.
Just saw a headline where the entire state of California is declared “drought free”.. I’m glad but I’m not surprised about our awful winter because when the west is stormy all winter, our winters here aren’t that great.
Yeah, mountains can either disrupt a storm system or occasionally enhance it depending upon the direction of wind flow. Not lately, but we can get decent snow here with enhanced oragraphic lifting….been a few years since we have had a good NW flow in winter. But often, t-storms are sheared to death bty the same oragraphic disruption.
In my county of Taylor we had wind gust to fifty miles per hour all occurring yesterday afternoon and into last night. Only 0.02 inches of rain as the storm total.
So much for 40s. I started out at 51 and right now its 57 degrees and rising.
It is a great day in our part of the state. Nothing in the extended that doesn’t have a day time high with anything less than 50s either. We might have the usual cold day or two here before summer, but spring looks to have arrived. RIP to the winter that never happened.
Again, we really don’t fit in with the forecasts down here as we are simply too far SE of the real Ohio Valley. We are the Appalachian Valley…lol. This is why we complain so much as our forecasts don’t pan out with most of the state but it can be positive at times. I am 55 here in Harlan!
Terry is Harlan a good area to garden ? Like tomatoes and peppers ? Also as you know my favorite ornamental plants are the Rhododendron and Azaleas. Are they easy to grow in your area of Harlan ?
See below….system separated my reply to you.
50 in Richmond.
61 in Knox county
60 even in Harlan. It is a cool, breezy day but very nice still for mid March.
High was 63 but cooling down a little now. Nice day with almost zero clouds:)
made it to 64
About like the rest of the state for fruits/veggies. You have to fight too much rain, occasional droughts, late frosts/freezes, etc. It is much warmer in the valley than the mountains though, so the garden season is longer than up high where I am at and usually fairly safe after April 15th for no major freeze.
Where azaleas and rhododendrons are later bloomers in spring, they grow great here as usually bloom after last freeze, especially rhododendrons. Rhododendrons are wild here with the mountains covered! You would like that:)
Thanks Terry I sure would !
Sunny and 60 in Perry co although looks like the cooler temps are moving this way .. wind is still crazy, 30+ mph right now. This looks to be the driest stretch of weather we’ve had since last September.