More dry weather on tap heading into the home stretch of summer

It’s been a tranquil week of weather across central and Eastern Kentucky with dry and very warm conditions across the area daily and Thursday was no exception. With high pressure continuing to dominate, we saw plenty of sunshine along with afternoon highs in the upper 80s across the Bluegrass with the southeastern mountains seeing mainly low to mid-80s. This lengthy stretch of unseasonably warm weather should hang around heading into the final weekend of summer.

Friday looks like a repeat performance of what we’ve seen lately with a mainly sunny day on tap and afternoon highs one again in the upper 80s to near near in Central Kentucky with low to mid-80s in the east. There is a weak mid-level wave to our west that may work eastward late Friday but the air is so dry across this part of the commonwealth that any shower activity that develops should be confined to far Western Kentucky. Given the lack of humidity and sunset being right after most games kick-off, it should be a comfortably warm night for high school football around the area.

This weekend we put the wraps on the summer season for 2025 and it will feel like it across Central and Eastern Kentucky as the very warm conditions persist. Festival season is really cranking up across the area with a number of big events on tap and the weather should cooperate for the most part. The only issue will be the very warm to hot conditions thanks to mostly sunny skies so if you have outdoor plans make sure to hydrate and load up on the sunscreen, especially if you’ll be out in the direct sun for any length of time. Afternoon highs will dance around the 90 degree mark with more mid-80s east and overall our isolated shower chances will be confined Sunday and those will be far and far between if they happen at all.

The fall equinox occurs at 2:19 PM Eastern on Monday afternoon but it will still feel like summer across the region to begin the new season. Afternoon highs should climb into the upper 80s but our isolated to scattered storm chances fortunately will as well. An upper level system will help push a weak front into the area, especially toward Tuesday and Wednesday bringing our first legitimate chance for showers in a couple of weeks. We definitely need the rain here in the Bluegrass as the latest Drought Monitor has all of Central Kentucky in a Moderate Drought. The far southeastern part of the state is actually in better shape given the heavy rain that occurred about 2 weeks ago. This is also one of the reasons that temperatures have been a bit “cooler” in the mountains compared to other areas as a very dry ground can be heated up more effectively (like what we have here in the Bluegrass) compared to the “wetter” conditions in the southeast which has a tendency to promote a slower warm-up.