Very warm and mainly dry for the final week of summer

Other than a few sprinkles during a brief window Saturday evening and some storms Sunday just to our west, our weekend remained high and dry across Central and Eastern Kentucky with afternoon highs in the upper 80s to around 90 degrees. Monday was no exception as we kicked off the week with more sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures across the area so summer isn’t going down without a fight as the official start of fall looms on the horizon next week.

Look for more of the same on Tuesday as our extended stretch of dry weather continues across the region. A surface low riding through the Mid-Atlantic to our east may throw a few clouds back to the west along with a decent east breeze. This may take the edge off of the “heat” we’ve been dealing with the last few days  but it will still be unseasonably warm for mid-September with afternoon highs topping out in the mid-80s, which is still a few degrees above average as mainly sunny skies prevail.

Heading into the mid to late week, the Ohio Valley will be stuck in between the aforementioned surface low to our northeast and a trough digging into the Upper Midwest, which should keep things dry once again as we see the late summer heat increase. With plenty of sunshine around, afternoon highs will climb back toward the 90 degree mark and could potentially overachieve, especially with the  rapid onset of drought conditions across the region. Burn bans are in place for many locations across the commonwealth given all the dry weather and will stay put until we see some significant rainfall, which may be a while given the overall pattern.

It does appear we’ll finally see some legitimate chances for a few scattered showers and storms by this weekend as a wave of low pressure slides in from the west as a backdoor cold front arrives out of Canada. Even though we aren’t looking at any significant rainfall and it won’t be enough to bust the on-going drought, we’ll take what we can get given our lengthy stretch without rain. It appears Sunday looks to be our best bet for shower/storm chances and of course this should take the edge off of temperatures a bit with afternoon highs backing down into the low to mid-80s. Look for additional shower chances to hang around early next week as the fall season officially arrives next Monday afternoon.