Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport weather station has reported its fourth-wettest year — and may even reach the No. 3 spot for 2018.
2018 will go down as one of Kentucky’s wettest ever with several cities setting all-time records for precipitation in a year.
It took until the morning of New Year’s Eve for Louisville to finally break the record of 68.02 inches.
Lexington’s previous record of 67.07, Frankfort (65.58) and Jackson (63.29) were all topped earlier this month.
This is also the second-wettest year in the Huntington/Ashland area but is more than two inches below the top spot for annual rain.
Western Kentucky has not seen the amount of precipitation that central and eastern parts of the state have as 2018’s rain in Paducah has that city in the number ten position, the Evansville/Henderson area is number six, and Bowling Green is nowhere near the top 10, although Bowling Green has seen a record number of days with rain this year.
Derby Day was the wettest in Louisville weather history, which dates back to 1871. A total of 3.15 inches of rain fell that day, more than double the previous record for the Derby. However, interestingly, there was no thunder with all that rain.
Ryan Sharp, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, says record rain has not been all that uncommon in parts of the eastern United States.
“Part of that is because of the influence of the tropics,” he said. “The remnants of four tropical storms moved over the state of Kentucky this year. That includes one or two from the eastern Pacific, which came all the way across the country. Each of those storms produces a ton of rain, so adding up all those totals you get to where we are right now.”
The year 2011 was the previous benchmark year in the cities setting records in 2018 and Sharp says that was another time when Kentucky saw heavy rain from the remnants of tropical systems.
At this time, it doesn’t appear the wet pattern will continue in the new year, as the Climate Prediction Center says while the first 10 days of the month are predicted to have temperatures above normal and precipitation near normal, both temperature and precipitation amounts are expected to be below normal during the rest of January.
Kentucky Today