Strong winds possible into Thursday

With a warm front just to our south on Wednesday, it was a cloudy, dreary day with a few light showers and sprinkles across Central and Eastern Kentucky as afternoon highs remained in the mid to upper 50s. As an area of low pressure heads into the Ohio Valley during the early hours of Thursday, winds will shift to the south and increase in speed as the warm front arcs through the commonwealth.

Expect temperatures to climb into the low 60s by daybreak Thursday, but the big story will be the strong winds associated with the deepening low pressure. Winds out of the south/southwest should be sustained at 20 to 30 miles per hour with gusts of 45 to even 50 miles per hour plus, especially here in the Bluegrass Region. This could produce some wind damage with the highest gusts (trees and power lines impacted) and with the high winds happening during the morning commute, you’ll definitely want to be careful out on the roadways. A Wind Advisory is out for the entire area until 7pm on Thursday.

Once the frontal boundary moves eastward and the low begins to pull to the northeast, temperatures will take a tumble from northwest to southeast by Thursday afternoon with quite a temperature spread across the area with low and mid-60s in the south and east with readings dropping into the upper 40s and low 50s in the Bluegrass as cooler air rolls in.

The wave of low pressure that we’ve kept an eye on for the potential of a rain/snow mix into the weekend now appears that it will remain south of Kentucky, thus keeping our area dry and cooler for the upcoming weekend. Highs should drop back into the low 40s by Saturday, which is just a few degrees below average for this time in February. One thing to keep in mind…some of the data tries to move the aforementioned low just to our southeast, which would bring some snow potential to the highest elevations of Southeastern Kentucky so we’ll watch the trend the next few days.

Heading into next week and through Valentine’s Day, temperatures will recover again into the 50s as our next storm system heads in from the west. Our rain chances should ramp up a bit late on Valentine’s Day and into Wednesday so our fairly active weather pattern will stick around.

ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Scattered rain, breezy with rising temperatures into the low-60s.
THURSDAY: Very windy with morning rain. Highs in the low-60s before falling into the low-50s late. Wind gusts over 50 miles per hour at times!
THURSDAY NIGHT: Turning colder, still breezy. Lows in the mid-30s.