More active weather into the late week as temperatures stay mild

A few strong storms can't be ruled out late Thursday

3 hours ago

T.G. Shuck,

It was another mostly cloudy day across Central and Eastern Kentucky on Wednesday with sunshine definitely being at a premium. Despite this, temperatures were once again very spring-like, driven by a strong southwest wind pushing unseasonably mild air into the area. Low level moisture helped some patchy drizzle and a few light showers to develop so it ended up being a little dreary for much of the day. Even with winds gusting over 20 to 25 miles per hour at times, most locations struggled to move very much because of the low clouds and moisture so upper 50s and low 60s was where we landed for afternoon highs. The showers on Wednesday were a prelude of things to come as our rain and storm chances should ramp up a bit into the late week.

A more significant wave of low pressure and a trailing cold front will move into the Ohio Valley on Thursday bringing our first legitimate chance for thunderstorms in quite some time. With the persistent and strong southwest wind driving mild and moist air into the commonwealth, Thursday looks like our warmest day of this spring-like stretch with afternoon highs reaching the upper 60s, even with clouds and rain/storms around the area. The strong storm threat is still on the table for Thursday, although the more favorable area has shifted to our northwest. The better set-up and dynamics should be into southern parts of Illinois and Indiana where the damaging wind and isolated tornado threat are highest.

That being said, the Storm Prediction Center still has areas along the Ohio River in the Level 2 severe risk (out of 5) with most of Central and Southern Kentucky now in a Level 1 threat. It may be a case of where a few isolated supercells eventually form into a cluster of storms and push eastward into our area deeper into the evening on Thursday. While all modes of severe weather are on the table, the overall threat is still conditional and damaging winds may end up being the greatest concern. The timing looks like it may be later on Thursday evening, which would work to our advantage as we should lose some instability and storm energy after the sun goes down. Just stay weather aware on Thursday, especially since it’s been several months since we’ve had any organized storm threat across the region so review those safety plans ahead of time.

Closing out the week on Friday, look for a slight cool down but temperatures still above average for this time in February with some sunshine returning to the commonwealth. Afternoon highs should reach the upper 50s along with a steady west breeze so it should still feel decent to be out and about. Heading into the weekend, the model data continues to struggle with a wave of energy that some have been locked on for the last several days, which would bring a few rain showers to the area late Saturday. Now several of the models that were on this wave have basically lost it, so things are trending drier for Saturday now, even though we’ll have some scattered cloud cover around. A weak boundary will be ushering in some cooler air so look for afternoon highs back into the upper 40s, which is right around average for late February.

Expect a quick dose of reality into Sunday with even cooler air arriving and a weak wave of energy may produce a few scattered snow showers into Sunday so that will be a reminder that winter isn’t over just yet. It shouldn’t amount to much and we’ll be back into dry and mainly sunny skies by early next week. However we’ll have a few chilly days to contend with as temperatures struggle on Monday to reach the mid-30s for afternoon highs. Fortunately some slightly milder air will come back pretty quickly toward the middle part of next week with a few more rain chances on the horizon as well.