Temperatures slowly back off a bit as the week wears on

It was a another typical early August day weather-wise across Central and Eastern Kentucky Tuesday with sunshine along with hot and humid conditions. Most locations managed to reach the low 90s for afternoon highs and with a decent amount of humidity around, it definitely felt like an “instant sweat” scenario if you were outdoors for any length of time. Heat Index values managed to sneak up around 100 degrees at times for the majority of the area with a few spots reaching the low 100s during the hottest part of the day. We shouldn’t be baking in this August heat all week as be baking in the heat all week as two separate frontal boundaries bring some relief in the form of “cooler” temperatures in the coming days.

As the first boundary arrives on Wednesday it will be moisture starved although some of the data continues to advertise a stray shower or storm pooping up during the afternoon hours especially for areas of the Bluegrass Region. These should be few and far between but take the umbrella along in case you get caught underneath one. With a few more clouds around and the boundary pushing east, a northwest flow will help hold our afternoon highs into the upper 80s in most locations, which is right around average for the early part of August

The big weather story nationally continues to be a now weak Tropical Storm Debby, which is impacting the southeastern U.S. after making landfall early Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane in the “Big Bend” area of northwest Florida along the Gulf of Mexico. The major issue with Debby is the extremely slow movement given that the upper level winds just aren’t there to move the system along very quickly so the storm is expected to head out into the Atlantic off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina over the next day or so. While some restrengthening is possible before moving inland again late week, the significant issue will be some potential historic rainfall and flooding which looks more likely along the North Carolina/South Carolina border just northwest of Myrtle Beach, although the heavy rain looks a bit more spread out and not as concentrated in one area as it did before.

However, these tropical systems have a tremendous amount of moisture with them, especially when additional Atlantic moisture may be pulled on-shore so a lot of the data continues to show a solid 10″-15″ rain event the next few days in that part of the southeast U.S. with localized spots seeing up to 25 inches on top of the several inches that has already fallen. This will be a devastating event for that region so we’ll continue to monitor the rainfall totals before the remnants finally kicks off to the northeast by the weekend.

Looking ahead to Friday, it will really be the 2nd boundary that will have the biggest impact on our weather as a decent shot of “cooler” air with less humidity (with our “muggy-cast” really taking a tumble) arrives late Friday and just in time for the upcoming weekend. The timing rarely works out for a comfortable weekend as far as temperatures and humidity levels during the heart of summer but as of now this may end up being an unseasonably pleasant August weekend with sunshine, nice temperatures in the low to mid-80s for highs on low humidity levels. It is a summer weekend and most folks typically have a lot going on outdoors however you may want to make some outdoor plans this weekend and take advantage of what could be an amazing weekend if you have nothing on the docket at this point! Stay tuned!

ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST
TUESDAY NIGHT: Mostly clear, warm and muggy. Lows in the low-70s.
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny, stray P.M. storms. Highs in the upper-80s.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Fair skies and pleasant. Lows in the upper-60s.