No I didn’t suddenly become stupid (although my now teenage Mecklette sometimes seems to think so…if you’re a parent of a teen you know exactly what I mean :-) …and some may argue ‘what do you mean ’become’?…but I digress.  I know the date is not right…but even though we changed the calendar and the meteorological season (by the way welcome to ‘Meteorological Fall’) our weather hasn’t changed yet…so we’re extending August by a few days.

Rest assured, September weather is coming (and more like mid to late September at that when it does).  With a big trough building in from the north we’ll see a very nice cool down for your Labor Day holiday weekend.  The weather is looking spectacular with highs for a day or 2 in the 70’s…lows in the 50’s.  It may be a bit cool for some late summer things like the last dip in the pool or tubing on the lake, but for everything else it looks perfect.

That big trough will also help steer Earl.  Sometimes it’s the subtle little things that make a difference in life.  We know there will be a trough centered on us and consequently a nice southwest to northeast upper flow along the east coast.  The trough will to an extent help block Earl from coming too far west, but the shape of the trough will also determine the angle of recurve.  What we’re not completely sure of is the shape of the trough.  If it comes in and it’s a bit more shallow…say a 45 degree angle (picture a line running from bottom left to top right) then the recurve ends up being a bit sharper, Earl turns more northeast and it’s a glancing blow on the Outer Banks and Cape Cod.  But, say the trough come in stronger and sharper the flow lines become more vertical which brings Earl in closer so that a hit not only on the Outer Banks is possible, but a run all the way up along the coast to New England with direct hits on both and damage in between. 

The big picture differences are subtle, but the real world implications are vast.  At this point we’re leaning more toward the latter than the former.  We’ve talked all along about how most of the modelling and also NHC were trying to turn Earl (recurve) too early and too far east…originally this was supposed to come up east of Bermuda…but the trend is more and more west.  Of course that trend has to stop eventually, but now it’s far enough west where we do have to bring in the thoughts of bad things from Earl…and not just a fish storm.

If you’re heading to Myrtle Beach…you should be fine with the storm passing by Thursday night to the east.  There may be a few squalls into early Friday and some rough waves, but beyond that Mytrle looks ok.  At least part of eastern North Carolina should experience hurricane conditions with a direct hit still at least possible around Hatteras.  The big concern is that Earl pulls a Bob and plows into New England.  At this point a path into Rhode Island or eastern Massachusettes looks like a decent bet.  Here’s last night’s Euro run showing the center near Cape Cod.

Side note…notice there is no Fiona on this.  At least for now Earl has become so big that it has poisoned the environment around it for the time being.

What’s also going to be interesting is now that we have WeatherBug we have access to a series of cameras and stations all along the East Coast that nobody else does…so as long as the electronics work we may be able to get you some unique info.

Enjoy the last of this current heat…rain chances before the weekend…and then what looks to be a great Labor Day.

And so we bring ‘Meteorological Summer’ to an end.  It’s been a hot and humid one and will go into the books as one of the hottest ever.   It hasn’t been from extreme heat, but consistent heat (more or less the mirror of winter when it was cold, but not extreme).  Remember when you start hearing about ‘the hottest on record’ (which Louisville did) that it’s the average temperature (high+low/2) they’re talking about.  Again, it WAS a hot summer, but it’s the lows that did a lot of the dirty work.  We saw a WAY above normal amount of 70°+ lows which implies that the dewpoints were above 70, which means it was a MUGGY summer.  Many high temperature records from the 1930’s continue to stand to this day.

We’ve seen 33 90 degrees or better days this summer with 34 likely on Tuesday.  2007 had 45 and 2005 had 37 which compares to our 110 year average of 24.  It’s a lot of 90 degree days…but not an extraordinary one.

Now to the tropics…Earl is a Category 4 storm passing north of the Greater Antilles.  There is a lot of warm water ahead of the storm, so additional strengthening is likely.  The question where does the recurve happen and how sharp will it be.  There has been some of the computer models that are almost a hairpin turn which seems pretty unlikely.  What we can say is the trend since the birth of this storm is farther west with each run.  For the first time, in this evening’s computer runs there are a couple of models actually brining Earl all the way back to the Outer Banks with a direct hit.  There is the potential here to run the whole coast from the Carolinas north as we prepare for Labor Day.  It does continue to require watching, but anyone heading that way needs to be aware of Earl.

We’ll talk more about that later…

Enjoy your Tuesday.

Sorry for the lack of posts…lots of stuff going on.  We’re installing new weather equipment and we’ve got the training going on with that…and oh yeah I had to golf Monday afternoon representing the station…I know, somebody has got to do it.

Anyway, not much to write about anyway.  After a little cool front slides by this afternoon…with our only rain chance for the next week (and believe me it’s not a huge rain chance) we’ll get a taste of September. 

Now for us weatherwise September means a couple of different things.  First off to finish the week some fairly cool, but more importantly very dry air (dewpoints in the low 50’s) will be arriving giving that first real fall feeling air.  However for us September also has its share of hot days (but they’re dry ones) and we’ll get that too starting this weekend and lasting well into next week.

While our weather is remarkably dull, the tropics are finally getting going.  Danielle may have a date with Bermuda, but is most likely a fish storm.   The African wave train is now leaving the station and several names may come out of the deep tropics over the next couple of weeks.  With the big high bringing us great weather we’ll have to see if a Newfoundland Wheel gets set up which blocks tropical systems from recurving north but instead can send them into the US east coast.

So with that…at 8:20 in the morning your friendly neighborhood weatherguy is off to work….yay!

Have a great Wednesday.

Couple of quick notes…

1) If you’re on Lexington’s northside this evening check out the Cane Run Watershed Festival.  It’ll run from 5:00 to 8:00 at Green Acres Park (1556 LaSalle Rd).  There’s free burgers and dogs for the first 500 there plus free entertainment.  This is part of Lexington’s effort to raise awareness of our watersheds (how water flows and drains from an area).  Cane Run is a small creek that actually begins near the TV station and flow past us.  It actually separates us from the MAXTRACK Live Doppler as it sits on the ‘back 40′ on the other side of the creek.  You may have noticed an article in this week’s paper about an initiative that’s placing watershed awareness signs around Lexington highlighting each area.  You may live in the Town Branch or Wolf Run watershed.  Stately Meck Manor resides within the West Hickman watershed.  Always remember that anything you put onto the street can eventually make it to the Kentucky River via these watersheds…so be mindful.

2)  As long as you’re on the northisde tonight, come on over to Applebees Park where your friendly neighborhood weatherguy is the guest PA announcer for the Legends game tonight.  We’ll try to make that a lot of fun..it was a blast last year.

3) It was a big time ice cream day here at LEX 18…if you’re a long time reader of ye ol’ blog then you know we have ice cream celebrating our ratings victories over the Evil Empire.  The July ratings book  arrived this week…and it was HUGE!  Personally I’d like to thank each and every one of you for watching us and making LEX 18 the #1 choice for local news…and it was a ROUT!  It wasn’t quite the caliber of the thrashings that Florida used to give UK…but it’s a big win…so again thanks…and now let’s see what the H-L headline of the story will be…

WEATHER…

After 300+ words a bit of weather…Friday was our 29th 90 degree day…slightly above average, but nothing particularly noteworthy.  We may hit it again Saturday…and if we don’t we may go a week without another one.  Saturday will depend on how quickly the clouds increase.

An approaching cool front will bring scattered t-storms to the area with the best chances being from midday Saturday to midday Sunday (actually could very well last well into the afternoon in eastern and southeastern Kentucky.

So with that…enjoy your weekend…and hope to see you this evening.

Wednesday was probably a pretty uneventful day for most folks, but for the weather geeks it was another pretty interesting day.

It was a study in contrasts in both temperature and rainfall.  You either got A LOT of rain, or vitually none and the transition occurred over just a few miles.  Richmond and Perryville (2 of our WeatherBug site) each had nearly 2″ of rain.  Lexington offiically came in at .02″.   You can sweat that much!  There were flooding rains in southeast Kentucky where between 2 and 4 inches of rain fell. 

The enhanced rainfall came from a combination of  weak cool front (that does have some comfortable drier air behind it) and some of the moisture from the remnants of tropical depression 5 which has been hanging around the Gulf Coast for several days.  Similar to the huge May event, the rain fell in a fairly narrow corridor that ran in an arc from teh Gulf to Kentucky.

The temperature also saw a similar huge split.  Where the sun came out, like in Frankfort, it was in the mid 80’s.  Where the rain fell it stayed in the mid 70’s.  Lexington’s high of 79 was the coolest day in a month.

We’ve got a few dry days coming up with highs in the mid 80’s to around 90. After a few lingering storm chances Thursday, Saturday afternoon and Sunday will be our next rain threats…not all day washout threats…but scattered storms.

Side note…The Mecklette’s soccer team WON the Bluegrass Cup last weekend.  What was good to see is the offiicals gave the girls water breaks in the middle of each half.  I know how hot we were on the sideline, so you can only imagine how hot those young athletes (and the offiicals) were getting.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Here’s the result of the microburst in Lexington this afternoon.  It’s amazing how you go from ZERO rain by the Horse Park to more than an inch a couple of miles away at Bryan Station.  It thundered a lot and may have rained 6 drops here at the station by Lexmark.  Here’s the map from the USGS and Kentucky Mesonet networks.

The rain Saturday looks to be a bit more widespread with the best chances coming on Sunday with a cool front.

Speaking of which, stay cool with the heat and humidity Saturday…and enjoy your weekend.

OK…so we do have some thunderstorms that have popped up this afternoon.  It was actually fascinating coming into work with one of these isolated storms sitting on Lexington’s northeast side not too far away from the palatial LEX 18 studios.

While driving in I watched the microburst come down.  You could see this shaft of rain but what became even more interesting is after the microburst hit, you could see the the billow come back up as something like a rolling curtain.  Again…pretty neat stuff to watch…meteorologically speaking.  Apparently it’s also caused some minor wind damage near Russell Cave Rd.  That’s what microbursts can do is produce briefly damaging wind gusts near the point of impact.  The storm in question is only moving about 5 mph to the south-southeast, so locally heavy rain is also occurring in addition to intense lightning.

They also send out outflows which can then generate new thunderstorm cells.  Here’s the image from the Maxtrack Doppler shortly after the microburst (around 1:15) taken at 1:37.

The nearly perfect circle is the outflow generated by the storm’s microburst. 

Just think of it like you were tossing a stone into a pond…the stone is the microburst and the ripples are the outflow that you see…again some pretty cool stuff…unless you’re under one. 

The storms should put the kabosh on us hitting 97 today…but it’s already been in the 90’s and for those away from the storms it still is.  But here’s the Kentucky Mesonet from 2:15.  You can see the 83 right there in the middle…that’s the Lexington site which dropped 10 degrees as the outflow went by.

So there’s your afternoon weathergeek update.  It’ll still stay hot and humid into the weekend.

Stay cool…but then again you’re reading this, so you already are.

Happy Friday the 13th…

For the triscadecaphobics out there maybe we can get a triple-decker-number (ok yeah that one was lame) for your highs today.

The number we’re shooting for today is 97…which would make it the hottest day of the year.  Depending on how many cumulus clouds we get to pop up this afternoon there is at least a shot at 100…and I suspect many bank clocks, a few of our Weatherbug sites,  and perhaps your car thermometer may get there.  We also dropped to 71 this morning in Lexington, so that may also keep us a degree or 2 short as a 29 degree rise without changing airmasses is not an easy thing to do…especially when it’s already this hot.

Tomorrow looks a degree or 2 cooler…mid 90’s…but more humid.  There is also a better storm chance tomorrow…it’s not 0 today (more like about 10%) but the rain threat does go up quite a bit tomorrow afternoon.

The Mecklette (although now that she’s up to my nose I may not be able to call her that much more) has a soccer tourney in Versailles this weekend and we’ll be monitoring how she, and the rest of her team, are dealing with the heat.  We’ve already started hydrating her…just set her out in the yard and turned on the sprinkler… and we’ll have cool towels for the girls to use.  We’ve been in some tourneys where they’ll stop in the middle of a half to let the girls cool down, hopefully they’ll do that tomorrow.  We talk about the safety tips in the heat…and although the girls will be exerting themselves we’ll stay vigilant to make sure nobody overheats.

BTW…Sunday has some decent t-storm chances as the pattern begins to shift…

Stay cool and enjoy your weekend.

There is nothing new weatherwise…it’s stinkin’ hot and humid and will be staying that way until Sunday or Monday.  Friday may end up being the hottest day of the year…but we’ll worry about that then.

There will be scattered storms around again on Thursday…any of them can produce torrential rain and intense lightning.  Friday may see a lull with more storms over the weekend.

With school back in session more of our Weatherbug network is coming online.  We’re hoping to have Weatherbug stations, including cameras!, in schools throughout central and eastern Kentucky.  It’s a great way to get your school and community publicized on LEX 18 as well as providing a terrific educational opportunity in the school.  Check out this link to learn more…

http://www.lex18.com/weather-bug/

Stay cool and enjoy your Thursday.

First…it’s another stinkin’ hot afternoon.  We’re sitting in the mid 90’s again and with dewpoints in the low and mid 70’s our heat indicies are generally in the 102-107 range.  We do have heat advisories up this afternoon.

We also have a decent coverage of thunderstorms this afternoon with some of them capable of torrential rain as they move slowly east and gusty winds in addition to the lightning threat.  Check the MyMaxTrack for the latest on these.

There will be very little relief from the heat through at least Saturday, but a pattern change looks to be waiting in the wings next week.

We’re also keeping tabs on proto-Danielle in the Gulf.  At the very least some of its moisture should get entrained into our weekend weather potential with some enhanced rainfall chances.

Stay cool…and stay aware of the storms.