Good Thursday to one and all and welcome to the last day of the latest heat wave. After another round of hot air… mother nature owes us one and if you are a fan of fall… I am introducing the word Chilly into the mix for the air this coming weekend. 
While that is the big news locally… the big news nationally is Hurricane Earl as it climbs northward along the east coast.
Let us hit the local angle first and foremost. This is KENTUCKY Weather Center, ya know? 
Today is hot yet again and may end up being the hottest of the week. Highs in the middle 90s look to be a good possibility… especially across the central and eastern part of the state. The good news with this round of heat is it has been a dry one as humidity levels are not a factor at all.
A cold front approaches the area from the west later tonight into early Friday. This front will bring a fast moving line of showers and thunderstorms through here during this time. You can track this stuff in from the west on regional radar…
The MAJOR news on the weather front will be the CHILLY air moving in for the Labor Day Weekend. I use the word chilly because it is only the start of September and we are likely to see widespread 40s for lows Sunday. That will go along with a few days of low and mid 70s for highs. Add in a nice northerly breeze for Saturday and it will feel even cooler.
ALL models are agreeing with what we have been yapping about for a while now. Here is how the NAM sees things…
Most record lows for Sunday morning are down in the middle 40s… just in case you were wondering. In all honesty… Saturday and Sunday are going to be amazing weather days for fall lovers and will provide for an awesome first Saturday to the college football season.
Labor day itself will start chilly with upper 40s to low 50s and end a bit warmer with lower 80s. Sunny skies will continue to rule the weather world.
Look ahead to next week… temps are going to warm back into the middle and upper 80s.
Hurricane Earl is the star of the national weather stage as it rolls up the east coast through early Saturday. This storm is really cranking up and looking awesome as of this writing. Here is how it looks on camera…
Hurricane Warnings are up for the Carolina coast and will likely be extended farther up the coast into New England, where Watches were issued Wednesday afternoon. You can see the warnings here on the latest track map from the National Hurricane Center…
![[Image of 3-day forecast, and coastal areas under a warning or a watch]](https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT07/refresh/AL0710W_sm2+gif/031256W_sm.gif)
It should be noted that some models are on the western edge of the NHC track and bring Earl SUPER close to making landfall along the outer banks and again near the Cape Cod area of the northeast. The GFS is one of those models…
I will have a special blog coming later this afternoon and evening that will have all the tracking tools you need to follow Earl.
By the way… Earl is far from being the only storm out in the Atlantic…
Have a great Thursday and take care.
While I am ready for the cooler weather to come and settle in I do have to say I have enjoyed this weeks heat. I can, oddly enough since I hate heat, take heat that is not accompanied by humidity. This dry heat has actually felt good to me when I have been outside.
After this weekend I am not going to want even dry heat to make a come back. I can’t wait!
I noticed they are getting A LOT of rain in the central part of the country. Is this front slowing down or something? I thought the reason our totals weren’t going to be so high is because this front is “on the fly” across the country.
That hurricane looks crazy on satellite!
Bubba G asked this question yesterday–so let’s examine.
The 5 hottest summer’s for Lexington–what did the winter that followed look like?
#1–Summer of 1936
Winter of 1936-1937–Eighth WARMEST on Record; Record rainfall in January–Great Ohio Valley Flood of Jan 1937
#2–Summer of 1952
Winter of 1952-1953–SIXTH WARMEST on Record
#3–Summer of 1943
Winter of 1943-1944
A little above average
#4–Summer of 1983
Winter of 1983-1984
BITTER Cold December; Mild January & February
Wow! Earl looks scary on radar.
Well, if Farmer’s is correct, it will be mainly snow lover heartbreak for a lot of it. Our average has not exactly been a haven for too many big snows in the area, unless north of Lexington.
That all said, I think our chances are on an upward trend- perhaps slight, but better than the other direction 🙂
Interesting picture on the current Atlantic cyclone activity. I guess that means there won’t be any snark today about the busted hurricane estimates?Given how strong the last two systems became just out in the Atlantic, it’s a good think they didn’t move into the Gulf of Mexico.
Wow! Chris! I am really LOVING the weekend outlook! Going to be a perfect day for football! WE are going to the inaugural Lindsey Wilson game Saturday afternoon (my future son in law is one of the coaches!) But, we’ll likely have some earbuds or something plugged in so we can listen to the CATS, too!
Looks like the Atlantic Hurricane season is really ramping up! Hope most of them stay off shore form everybody, but I know that is not likely. Will stay tuned…have a GREAT Thurdsay (Friday Eve) everyone! 😉
Bubba……
Thanks for that examination! It’s hard to tell from that PDF file with each years snowfall from the late 1800’s to date, exactly what year they are talking about, but it looks like 1936/37 I think had a lot of snow. It looks like dec 1935, jan and feb 36 had 38.1 inches, followed by 2.6 additional inches in spring, with the average temp for the dec-feb months being 27.9 degrees….at least based on this
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/lmk/lexington_cli_pdf/seasonal_av_temp_total_precip_total_snow_lex.pdf
I’m glad to be back from NYC and out of the way of Earl. Gaston, though, looks to be the storm to watch. Another oil rig explosion in the Gulf. Uggghh.
With the low coming through could it push the high out, therefore push Earl out further from the cost?
Why is that line of storms disintegrating before our eyes? It always falls apart before it gets here and we NEED this RAIN so badly. ARGGHH!
Remember though, it’s a lanina year, and usually years with la nina bring warmer and wetter winters. But, the wetter out weighs the warmer. That is from the NWS. 1996, 1998, 2008 were la nina years too…….
I have found some interesting 2010-11′ winter outlooks on youtube.com just go to youtube and type in 2011 winter outlooks, some show snow/cold, others warm/wet…so i guess we’ll see how it plays out…
hmmm… this one is interesting and promising for us for snow and cold!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wogq9sPzwtE&feature=related