The winter season throws a parting shot with chilly air to begin the week

We’ve seen a pretty unseasonably mild winter across Kentucky and the Ohio Valley this season so it was ironic that Mother Nature gave a little parting shot of colder air to begin this week as we close out the season “officially” late Tuesday. With a brisk northwest wind and mainly overcast conditions, temperatures struggled into the upper 30s for highs on Monday as the much advertised trough with the chilly air rotated through the region. We even saw a few flakes of snow in the air especially across the northern and eastern part of the state despite the fact that we saw a little early morning sunshine before the clouds filled in.

Even though the “growing season” hasn’t officially started there are plenty of trees and plants that are already in bloom so while no advisories for frost or freeze conditions will be issued, we are looking at mid-20s for early morning lows so a hard freeze is expected once again. Make sure to protect any plants that you can that have bloomed early. The other issue Tuesday morning will be wind chills that could be in the upper teens and low 20s early. Winds are going to stay up enough to make it feel awfully cold if you are out the door early so keep that in mind.

The rest of the day looks much better with sunshine and afternoon highs recovering all the way into the mid-50s in most locations. I do think the breezy southwest winds at 10 to 20 miles per hour will add a bit of a cooling effect despite the bright sunshine so it may feel a little cool once again thanks to the wind.

The spring season officially arrives at 11:06pm Tuesday night and we are looking at some up and down temperatures the rest of this week but nothing overly warm, even for late March. A dry cold front will drop through the Ohio Valley on Wednesday ushering in some slightly cooler air so expect afternoon temperatures to drop from the upper 50s to the low 50s from Wednesday to Thursday as we stay dry.

Our nest chance of organized rainfall will come on Friday as another storm system moves in from the west. The end of the week looks a bit damp and now much of the model data is showing another cool down heading into the weekend. Showers should wind down early Saturday in Eastern Kentucky and we should be dry the rest of the weekend. Now it appears that low to mid-50s will be the favored range for afternoon highs (instead of upper 50s and low 60s) so we’ll be slightly below the curve for late March with temperatures.

ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST
MONDAY NIGHT: Clearing skies, breezy and cooler. Lows in the mid-20s.
TUESDAY: Mostly sunny and breezy. Highs in the mid-50s.
TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear, still breezy and chilly. Lows in the mid to upper 30s.