A quick break from the active weather pattern to end the week

A quick out of season severe weather event greeted folks across Southern and Southeastern Kentucky to kick off Thursday with a number of Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and even a couple of Tornado Warnings. These storms did do some damage as they raced through the area during the morning hours before things settled down a bit into the afternoon. An EF-1 tornado with winds around 95 miles per hour tornado was confirmed in Hart County in Central Kentucky along the I-65 corridor. The other issue was heavy rainfall on already saturated ground so a number of locations dealt with flooding and high water issues. After spending much of Wednesday with temperatures in the 30s and 40s, we flipped the switch with a spring-like Thursday as high temperatures surged back into the low 60s ahead of a cold front. Expect more of a rollercoaster ride with temperatures heading toward the weekend.

We are in store for a quiet Friday across Central and Eastern Kentucky as cooler and briefly drier air should work back into the area. We should catch just enough high pressure to our north to see a mix of clouds and sunshine but it will be a cool day as afternoon highs reach the upper 40s. This is still a few degrees above average for early February so it should be more of a pleasantly cool day. A few clouds may begin to increase late in the afternoon ahead of our next system that will move in to begin the weekend.

Our parade of storm systems along with the roller coaster ride of temperatures will kick back in Saturday as a wave of low pressure and a cold front move into the Ohio Valley. It should be a fairly damp beginning to the weekend so make sure and take the rain gear along if you have any plans. With breezy southwest winds ahead of the front, afternoon highs will be mild yet again with temperatures topping out in the low 60s. A few storms may be possible but it shouldn’t be anything like what we saw early Thursday. Cooler air will follow suit behind the departing system as we close out the weekend with just a few showers leftover early Sunday before we dry out. Temperatures will back down into the low 40s for highs and this time the chilly air will settle in for a while.

It looks a bit chilly to kick off next week with highs in the low 40s as our unsettled weather pattern stays in place. The main focus will be a wave of energy expected to roll by to our south Monday night and into Tuesday. There should be a decent amount of moisture pulled into our area and with enough cold air in place it does appear we could see a return of some wintry weather heading into Tuesday. Much of the data shows a gradient  of precipitation types from south to north based on the temperature profiles so at this point both rain and snow are on the table. Those areas that stay cold enough could lay a little snow down with highs into the mid to upper 30s. We’ll watch that system closely as we draw closer to early next week.

ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST
THURSDAY NIGHT: Shower chances ending, turning colder. Lows in the low 30s.
FRIDAY: Morning sunshine with increasing clouds late. Highs in the upper-40s.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Rain moves back in, slowly rising temperatures. Lows in the upper-30s rising into the low-40s.