Storm train rolls along into Friday

It was quite the steamy beginning to August across Central and Eastern Kentucky as Thursday ended up being one of our more uncomfortable days to be out and about in recent memory. With more sunshine around, temperatures were able to heat up efficiently with most locations sneaking into the low 90s for afternoon highs. Add in the very high humidity levels and it was quite oppressive with heat index values surging into the low 100s in several spots. Of course with all that moisture around and the overall weather pattern staying the same  as it has been all week with thunderstorm complexes developing to our to our northwest, the threat for torrential rains/ flash flooding along with some damaging wind gusts will remain on the table through Thursday evening once again.

The same old song and dance is in store for Friday as a slow moving cold front to our west edges a bit closer. Rain and storms are expected at some point on Friday but as mentioned this week our current pattern is quite challenging for timing and placement of the large thunderstorm clusters with the model data struggling to latch on. That being said we are pretty confident in more storm chances for Friday as we’ll have another very muggy day. However there should be enough scattered cloud cover to keep afternoon highs in the upper 80s to right around 90 degrees. We are looking at a a Level 1 severe risk on Friday (out of 5) with damaging winds continuing to be the main severe threat in addition to heavy rain.

The aforementioned cold front will finally push through the Ohio Valley on Saturday and in the process break the consistent upper level northwest flow so a shift to a frier weather pattern won’t be far off. It appears it may end up a 50/50 weekend with occasional rain and storms on Saturday followed by a dry Sunday. Humidity levels will go from oppressive to manageable as some slightly drier air tries to work into the region, although it will still feel a bit on the humid side which is normal for early August.

Heading into next week we should finally string a few dry days together but the summer heat will stay in place as there isn’t expected to be a big change in airmass behind the departing boundary. In fact with more sunshine around, afternoon highs will run into the low-90s but it won’t be quite as humid as it has been this week. By the time our rain chances end on Sunday we may actually need a couple of days to dry out given the consistent rain of late. Ironically the latest Drought Monitor out on Thursday doesn’t show any major change in drought conditions (remember the reading is taken on Tuesday) so it may take a few weeks for the map to show some improvements hopefully in the dry ground we’ve seen much of the summer.

ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST
THURSDAY NIGHT: Warm and muggy with scattered storms, heavy rain possible. Lows in the low-70s.
FRIDAY: Humid with more storms. Highs in the upper 80s to low-90s.
FRIDAY NIGHT: Muggy with a few storms. Lows in the upper-60s.