Spring-like temperatures to close out winter

After a brief cooldown to begin the week, we enjoyed a delightful Tuesday across Central and Eastern Kentucky with sunshine and temperatures rebounding nicely. Afternoon highs jumped all the way back into the low to mid-70s, a good 20 degrees plus warmer than what we saw on Monday. It was a nice sneak preview of the spring season, which is officially just around the corner.

Our next storm system is set to arrive for the mid-week but we should be far enough east to see a dry Wednesday across the area with more mild air in place. Winds will be a factor yet again with a strong area of low pressure spinning off to our northwest. Expect breezy conditions with wind gusts 35 to 40 miles per hour at times, which will push afternoon highs well into the 70s despite some increasing cloud cover ahead of the approaching system. Rain and storm chances will ramp up Wednesday evening and overnight as the cold front moves eastward. There is the potential for a few of the storms to be strong, especially west of the I-75 corridor with damaging winds and a bit of hail the main threats. The Storm Prediction Center has the area west of Lexington in a Level 1 severe weather risk (out of 5) into early Thursday morning.

Spring officially arrives at 5:01 AM Thursday morning and ironically so does a push of colder air on the backside of the departing storm system. In fact, with temperatures dropping into the 30s, we could actually see a few snowflakes mixing in with the chilly rain showers for the first few hours of the spring season! Temperatures will struggle to get back into the mid-40s for afternoon highs and throw in a breezy west to northwest wind at 15 to 20 miles per hour and it will definitely feel more like winter again on Thursday.

Looking ahead to the weekend a weak wave of energy will slide through the region Friday night and into Saturday but we aren’t expecting much in the way of rainfall so expect just a few scattered showers to dodge from time to time. We should have a window of dry weather into early Sunday before a stronger storm system rolls in late Sunday and into early Monday. This one will have a bit more moisture with it so some solid rain and storm chances are on tap for the commonwealth. Any heavy rain could create some localized flooding issues given the recent rain and minor issues we had this past weekend. Temperatures through the period should be just above average for the latter part of March with afternoon highs generally in the low to mid-60s through the weekend and into early next week before we cool down a bit with more low end shower chances by Tuesday.

With multiple rounds of active weather ahead, be sure to check back for updates!