Good Monday everyone and welcome to an extreme weather pattern makeover. The run of historic heat is over, but it didn’t go down without a fight. A slightly slower movement of our cold front allowed temps to hit the low 100s again on Sunday. The front spawned several rounds of severe thunderstorms and brought some LONG overdue rains to most of the state. It’s now a whole new ballgame in terms of the weather pattern around here.
I want to start with a few more words about the heat wave we are just coming out of. Words cannot do justice to how impressive this thing was. Daily records, monthly records and all time records bit the dust in many cities across Kentucky and the nation. Only 1936 has featured hotter temps and a hotter stretch than the past 11 days. The 1936 heat wave was a direct result of one of the worst droughts in our nation’s history… hence the name “dust bowl”.
Many Kentucky cities have never had this many 100 degree days so early in the summer. I have NEVER been one to hype heat, just the opposite, but this heat was historical in every sense of the word.
The good news is that this historical heat is now history. Much cooler temps and a daily threat for showers and thunderstorms will be with us this week as we break out a brand new pattern.
The severe storms of Sunday afternoon and evening brought a ton of rain to much of the state. I know we had some places that got skipped in the process, but this was overall a big event for Kentucky and we aren’t done yet. The cold front is putting the brakes on across Tennessee and will hang around there much of the week. This will keep scattered showers and storms going today through Wednesday with the highest totals across the south.
Some Gulf of Mexico moisture will begin to work farther northward by the end of the week into the weekend and that will allow for a better threat for showers and storms. Check out the rain totals from the GFS over the next week…
Temps this week will be a far cry from the record setting heat wave we are coming out of. Highs will generally run in the 80s for most of the state. A 90 is possible here or there on any given day… especially in the west.
The heat ridge looks to head west and remain there for the forseeable future. This should allow for a weakness in the atmosphere to set up from the Gulf into the Ohio Valley over the next few weeks. The GFS continues to advertise this setup and the 2 week rainfall map is a thing of beauty…
Yep… I could live with that. Look at it this way… it honestly can’t get any hotter or drier than the past two weeks.
Here’s your Monday edition of tracking toys…
Current Temperatures
Have a wonderful Monday and take care.
Oh, it can and will get drier. Not even a sprinkle at my house and the drought lives on. I’ve never seen it this bone dry and I just won’t believe any chance of rain till I actually see it fall. I had dark clouds, thunder, lightening and winds yesterday. What I didn’t have is rain. ( :
Same thing here, very little rain despite the radar showing heavy rains here. Most of it was virga. According to the radar I should of had inches but all i got was sprinkles.
It’s very frustrating.
Does anyone have a running total of how much (or how little) rain Richmond received over the past week? I know we had a few showers and storms, but I was sleeping most of the time the rains fell. 😛
We had one good storm roll thru here on…..Friday or Saturday–that seemed to be the best rain producer here.
We had storms here yesterday (Hazard area), and my power went off. It just came back on a little while ago. What a warm night to try to sleep with no air conditioning!
A few sprinkles in etown ky. Very dry and humid here this morning.
I agree with some of the other folks on here, those rainfall maps look nice but it rarly pans out, The temps may be cooler but the drought looks like its going to be around for a while 🙁
I agree, the maps can say whatever they want to say but I highly doubt it will happen. I ran the sprinklers this morning but the ground is so dry and hard that nothing even soaks in. It looks pretty bad out there.
Am I correct that the low temp Sat night/Sun morning at KLEX was 81?
The reason I’m asking; looking at the past three day history says the low temp for Lex is 81, but the climate data says 73.
Ours according to the Mesonet site in Knox was 70 so i dunno if your right or not thats a big difference
It was but the temp dropped to 73 in wake of the thunderstorms Sunday afternoon/evening. So, the overnight low from Saturday into Sunday was 81, but the official low was 73 because it occurred before 11:59 P.M. on Sunday.
Good call. Surprised somebody (i.e. Chris Bailey) did not point out the 81 degree “low” yesterday since that is, um, quite warm.
The low was 73.
Well, if you go to Noaa and then click Lexington, there is a three day history that is updated every hour giving the high and low for each hour, then three and six hour intervals of the highest and lowest temp in those intervals, and it says 81.
The environment is so dry in Frankfort that Verga is a major player even with radar returns over head!
I’ll believe those maps when I see it falling in my backyard here in E-Town.
We’ve been doing this for almost 3 weeks now– rain looks promising, even gets dark & gloomy, big black clouds roll in with thunder & lightning and high wind gusts….then nothing.
Hoping you’re right though! 🙂