Good Wednesday everyone. I am proud to welcome the most powerful doppler radar in Kentucky to KWC. First Alert Defender is available on our radar page at the top of the blog. Kentucky Weather Center and WKYT are now officially partners, so you will be noticing some awesome changes going forward. You knew it was only a matter of time before I hooked these two up. 🙂
Let’s talk a little bit about the actual weather.
Temps today will warm a few degrees compared to the past week. Central and eastern Kentucky will see readings topping out in the low and middle 80s with warmer readings in the west.
Current Temperatures

I still can’t rule out a stray shower or thunderstorm across the east as some moisture hangs tough.
Thursday looks like the warmest day of the past week and the warmest day over the next week. Temps will hit the mid and high 80s for many with some low 90s west. Clouds will increase during the afternoon ahead of our strong cold front arriving on Friday. Scattered storms develop later Thursday and will become widespread on Friday. Some strong storms and heavy rains will be possible.
Some of these storms may impact the kickoff to the high school football season Friday evening.
Highs Friday will generally run in the 70s and that’s a trend that carries us through the weekend and into early next week. Lows in the 50s will be common during this time. Our northwesterly flow will need to be watched for a stray shower or two at some point.
The overall pattern for the next 10 days should see temps below normal. Blocking near Greenland means a deep trough hanging tough in the eastern part of the country…
I can live with that.
Have a wonderful Wednesday and take care.
Congrats on the awesome new radar!
I love it.Thanks Chris Bring on the snow lol.I am dreaming of a white Halloween!!!!!!
Thanks Chris. Love the radar!
Rain coming down heavy some Thunder.
Is that really the “First Defender” radar? It looks *exactly* like the Intellicast Pan & Zoom radar. Same exact radar data too. It just has the WKYT logo stuck over where the Intellicast logo would be.
There are two pieces to a radar. The hardware and the software. You can have the most awesome radar dome on the planet and 2 million watts of power, but if your interpreting and display software is terrible you’re not going to have good results. A lot of 3rd party weather teams use the same software and so the displays will all look very similar. But the data you are seeing there IS in fact coming from the local source so I’d trust it. In fact, the LMK radar viewer on the NWS site crashes multiple times per year so I’m thankful Defender is there as a backup.
But the data looks exactly like you see on the Intellicast site as well. Down to the pixel.
Yeah, after inspecting the source it’s just using the WeatherActive Map that Intellicast resells.
You rock, Chris. Congratulations!
the NWS says areas that miss rain Friday will be high and dry before next chance of rain comes, sounds like another prolonged period of dry weather coming after this next front, come on rain gods spread the love!
wow…69* at 2pm in August!! been a rainy/drizzly day here in Barbourville…
Technical question. When I go to the First alert Defender on this site or on WKYT on my office computer, I get a blank radar screen (all gray). I don’t have this problem on my home computer. I am self employed, so there are no employer/internet issues. Can anyone help with this?
Do you have Flash installed?
Defender does not support IPads 🙁
Wow Chris!! Congrats. Your hard work is paying off. WKYT is lucky to be hooking up with the best weather Dude EVER!! So proud for you!!