Good Wednesday to one and all. It’s another fantastic fall day taking shape across the region as our overall weather pattern threatens to turn unseasonably cold in the coming days. This brings the chance for a freeze in here over the weekend with a colder blast lurking later next week.
Let’s start with a look back at Tuesday’s cold morning…
Our cold start to fall continues with temps deep into the 30s again this morning. We still haven't had the first Frost Advisory even as a few thermometers have dropped below freezing.
Here are this morning's Top 10 lows from the Kentucky Mesonet. #kywx pic.twitter.com/3FXylvfAQ1
— Chris Bailey (@Kentuckyweather) October 4, 2022
As you can see, temps hit 32 or below once again and we have yet to have a Frost Advisory. The NWS continues to raise standards on any cold weather products and lower standards on hot weather products and will call any dry spell a drought. Yet, the January-September period was among the wettest on record for much of our region…
Again, dry spells are not the same as droughts, folks.
It’s the same issue with the airport thermometers being incredibly broken. The NWS in Louisville in March told everyone the Lexington thermometer was faulty and warned against using it. They literally told everyone not to use it because it was reading several degrees too warm. It’s October and it still hasn’t been fixed and they now say they won’t fix it. So, we are intentionally skewing official temps several degrees too warm.
Ok, rant over. 😜
Now, let’s talk about where this weather pattern is going.
It’s awesome out there today and that will continue into Thursday as temps climb to above normal for the first time in a long while. Winds will be gusty ahead of a strong cold front dropping in here later Thursday night into early Friday. The timing on the arrival of this front is slowing just a bit, but the air behind it continues to be very cold. Highs over the weekend range from the upper 50s to middle 60s with partly sunny skies. Lows will likely drop to freezing or below in many areas either Saturday morning or Sunday morning, or both.
The Canadian continues to have a good handle on the overall pattern and temps…
There’s another big time dip in the jet stream developing early next week across the Rockies and this will spread eastward later next week. Again, the Canadian has the best handle on this…
The EURO has the first to sniff this out, but the bias of the model of holding energy back in the southwest appears to be coming into play right now…
That will correct itself in time.
The end result in such a setup would be for a healthy fall storm system to impact us with needed rains later next week. The evolution of this is still to be determined and the models are still gonna waffle a lot in the coming days…
CANADIAN
EURO
You can see how the EURO holds that system back in the southwest too long. The EURO Ensembles and EURO Control have a different look and eject that trough out much quicker. Here’s the EURO Control showing that coming out with a follow up deep trough toward the end of the run…
The GFS goes back and forth with even finding this first trough, but the late Tuesday run shows the trough well and also has the follow up trough several days later…
And, for the first time this season, we have the GFS long range with fantasy flakes…
Lock it in… Right? 🤣🤣 Obviously, I post that for fun and to hopefully get a head start on living rent free in the heads of a few other weather folks. 😉😏
Make it a great day and take care.
needed rain, its keeneland time with breeders cup coming. no need for rain.
The NWS decision not to fix the Lexington Airport’s thermometer is like the KY road dept. finding a deep pothole and instead of fixing it, they erect a “Bump Ahead” sign.
SMH…
Thinking I know one of the other meteorologists you’re referring to. He seems to like to want everyone to know he’s the smartest one on the room, and comes off as a bit of a jerk.
Keep ownin’ them Chris!
(They see me rolling, they hatin)
In my local forecast along with the NWS out of Louisville they were experiencing problems with temperature, humidity and dew point readings. As of this morning, the malfunction has been rectified. Either they replace it or made the necessary adjustments. Don’t know. May I suggest purchasing your own personal accurate thermometer. I have a very reliable one.
As for the recent, beautiful Fall weather, I will ‘ bet the farm’ that it will eventually change to a warmer, wetter pattern sometime in November. All the signals lately point to a typical La Nina Winter for the Ohio Valley. Maybe El Nino will make his appearance in the Tropical Pacific sometime in the late Summer 2023 or not.
I read this morning on the NWS discussion that they may decide to issue a ‘ Frost Advisory ‘ for Saturday or Sunday morning, but they are waiting to see how the coming cold front will affect our area. I guess it’s about how far South the front gets before it stalls ?
The recent ” drought/ dry spell ” is taking it’s toll on my area in a big way. Even the NWS is considering issuing an alert for the fire danger in my area of South Central Kentucky. The native trees are changing early because of the drought stress. Many will dry to a golden brown before falling. Disappointing for sure. The best Fall foliage color I’ve seen here in my area was in October 2010.
The recent drought/ dry spell
Yes, plants are affected by low temperatures – which get major air time here. But they are also affected by lack of sufficient moisture. A typical meteorological trick is to lump moisture into a time frame that fails to show the distribution. We have gone weeks without rain, yet we are scolded. Why?
Further thoughts. Some of us spend a good number of hours every day outside and, therefore, have a real world appreciation for what the weather is and the effect it has on our surroundings. So, the rain gauge at some weather station may indicate we had rain but if it was a brief cloudburst and most of it ran off the hard, baked ground, then the ground is still dry. We realize those who see the weather through computer screens and are outside only long enough to get from the building to the car will have a completely different mindset.
SO TRUE !!!