Good Thursday everyone. After starting today out on a freezing note, things are about to take a much warmer turn as we head into the upcoming weekend. This warm up is long overdue and should hang around into early next week. I wouldn’t bet on it sticking around too much longer as colder signals are showing up in about a week from now.
The growing season is likely finished for much of central and eastern Kentucky after this morning. Here’s a sampling of our morning lows from across Kentucky…
Today marks the 6th day this fall that Lexington has dropped below 40 degrees. I searched the record books back to 1948 and it looks like only 1974 (8) had more sub 40 degree days at this point. Several other years are very close to this one: 2000, 1993, 1989 and 1988 all had 5 days below 40 during the same time.
Sunny skies will be noted today with temps near 60 in the east and low and mid 60s west. Some clouds will roll in across western Kentucky during the afternoon hours and scattered showers and storms may not be too far behind. This action will then roll eastward across the state early Friday with the best rain chance being across the south. This will make for a tough temp forecast, but temps shouldn’t get too far from 60 degrees.
The real deal warm air gets into town Saturday with thermometers hitting the 70s on a gusty southwesterly wind. This is ahead of a fall storm that will bring severe weather to the plains states Friday into Saturday as it heads toward the Great Lakes. A line of showers and storms will roll in here on Sunday with temps near 70.
We will need to keep an eye on another big storm forming across the plains by the middle of next week. There has been some decent model for a storm for a while now. There is also growing model support for another big chilly blast of air engulfing the country toward the end of next week. You can see that here on the GFS Height Anomalies in the 6-10 day period…
The model has also been showing a similar look to the pattern for the 11-15 day time frame…
Notice that big block across Alaska? That’s something showing up a lot this early fall and we will have to keep an eye on it as we roll forward. There’s a hint of fall 1993 with the pattern we are in.
Have a great Thursday and take care.
Heavy frost on the pastures this morning. Glad the weekend will be warm and sunny so I can get some outdoor farm stuff done before winter.
Chris, I remember 1993….hmmmm. Fun and games!
Aahh!!! Fall of ’93… followed by Winter of ’94. Jan. 17 to be exact. We had just shy of 2 FEET of that wonderful, white fluffy stuff here in and around Maysville! I remember it well. Then the next night or two we had
-25 degrees F. Brrr!!!!
Even though it was not fall,the superstorm on March 13,1993 sure brings back some good memories…30 inches of snow,No power for weeks,trees cracking and falling everywhere,flashes of blue,green from blowing transformers,..Aaah,once in a lifetime event..Sure would like to go through another one of these in my lifetime..
I was nine in March 1993, in Morristown TN. Snow drifts nearly to window level, downed trees, no power so no central heat (we normally never used the fireplace, but it sure came in handy).
I’ll never forget looking inside a neighbor’s garage; the aged car garage door was a bit warped so one side had a few millimeters gap between door bottom and concrete. Despite the tiny gap, a sizable mound of snow had piled up inside the garage!
It was all kind of fun at nine, but would be less so now as an adult as I’ve become more of a warm weather person. Still, a blizzard is far less an evil than the tornadoes of March 2012/April 2011.