Ag Weather Center-white.png

Ag Weather Update

Matt Dixon, Meteorologist

UK Ag Weather Center

Updated 9-29-22

Rain on the way for Eastern KY as Hurricane Ian progress north

Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 storm yesterday on the Florida west coast (near Fort Myers), leading to catastrophic damage across the area. Since, this storm has progressed across the Florida peninsula and is now back in the Atlantic and tracking north. While Ian's intensity diminished to Tropical Storm strength coming across Florida, look for a re-strengthening to a category 1 hurricane as it now approaches the South Carolina coast. Following it's second landfall, the latest track update from the National Hurricane Center has the remnants of the hurricane progressing towards Eastern KY early this weekend.

The latest model runs have the brunt of the rain arriving in SE KY on Friday night and continuing into Saturday. By all accounts, there will be a sharp cutoff in the higher accumulations across Eastern KY. The question is...where exactly that cutoff will occur? Uncertainty is still very much in the picture. Right now, I don't expect much in the way of rainfall west of the I-75 corridor. In fact, the western half of the state will likely stay dry. Altogether, the highest accumulations look to top 2 inches across far Eastern KY, where some isolated flooding threats could arise. Below is a look at the current forecast accumulations from the Weather Prediction Center over the next 3 days. Once again, notice the sharp cutoff. We'll see how this plays out over the next 48 hours.

As you can see above, outside of some significant rainfall across Eastern KY, the rest of the state will likely stay dry. This trend continues for the upcoming week, which will lead to a third straight week of mostly dry conditions for much of KY. Over the past 2 weeks alone, Kentucky has only averaged two tenths of an inch, which has led to an expansion of abnormally dry conditions across KY on the September 29th update of the U.S. Drought Monitor.

While turning dry, temperatures have run fairly comfortable as of late. It really seems like in years past that we've jumped straight from summer to winter. Not in 2022! We've had a spectacular stretch of fall weather recently and that looks to continue. In fact, look for high temperatures to stay in the 60s and 70s over the upcoming week. 


Saying all this, there has been a chill in the air during the early morning hours. The coolest temperature were seen on Wednesday morning (9/28) when some folks woke up to a light frost. Much of KY dove into the middle 30s to low 40s, but a handful of locations even hit the freezing mark! Below is a look at those lows, courtesy of the KY Mesonet.

Luckily, we aren't expecting any more freezing temperatures in the short term. Lows will likely stay in the 40s and 50s over the upcoming week. Below is a look at the average date of first freeze for various locations across KY. Notice that on average, many don't there first freeze until mid to late October.

Sign up for the Ag Weather Update

Related News from UK and Beyond

Kentucky Crop Progress and Condition Report - USDA NASS Kentucky Field Office, September 26, 2022


Beef Bash 2022 highlights resiliency and rebuilding from Kentucky tornado - Aimee Nielson, UK Ag Communications, September 22, 2022


Decision Tool Predicts Local Field Drying Trends for Corn - Dr. Sam McNeill, UK Extension Ag Engineer, September 21, 2022 


2022 KenTenn Workshop Registration - Saturday, October 22, 2022 at WKU Ogden Hall Auditorium

STAY CONNECTED

Email  Twitter  Web