After roaring on-shore in the Big Bend area of Florida late Thursday evening as a category 4 hurricane, Helene brought significant disruptive weather to most of the southeast U.S including Central and Eastern Kentucky. We saw steady rain and strong gusty and in many cases damaging winds Friday morning and into the early afternoon hours. Some locations saw wind gusts 55 to 60+ miles per hour (including a 65 MPH gust at Bluegrass Airport) as Helen transitioned from a tropical storm into a tropical depression as it moved into Southern Kentucky. There were numerous power outages (over 200,000 customers at one point) and many reports of wind damage throughout Central and Eastern Kentucky. We did pick up some beneficial rain in the process with a 1″-2″ totals over a good chunk of the area. The high winds are expected to relax a bit heading into the weekend but the rain chances should persist the next few days. The remnant low from Helene will camp out over Western Kentucky into Saturday and be absorbed by an upper level low that’s been sitting off to our southwest the last few days. With plenty of tropical moisture in place and the slow movement of the low pressure system expect a wet and dreary Saturday across the area. Showers should be pretty consistent throughout the day with breezy conditions as winds stay up at 10 to 15 miles per hour with some higher gusts but it shouldn’t be anything like what we saw on Friday. Temperatures won’t move very much with the low clouds and rain around so afternoon highs should only top out into the upper 60s. The second half of the weekend and into early next week will feature more of the same as the low essentially sits and spins right over the commonwealth, similar to a top spinning on a table. With the lack of much forward progress, more rain showers will be possible as the cloudy and dreary weather hangs around. Afternoon highs will continue to struggle to get out of the upper 60s although we could sneak into the low 70s by Monday. Pulling the positive out of this wet and unsettled weather pattern, our rainfall totals for the entire event should end up in the 4″-6″ range by the time all is said and done. Given that much of the area has been dealing with drought conditions the last several months including a few spots that dropped into extreme drought per the latest drought monitor out on Thursday, all the rainfall should put a major dent in the deficit and hopefully get most locations back to even in that regard. A frontal boundary will finally push the low out of the region as we welcome October on Tuesday bringing a return of dry and pleasant weather with some sunshine and highs in the low to mid 70s by the middle part of next week. ABC 36 HOUR FORECAST FRIDAY NIGHT: Cloudy with rain, winds back down. Lows in the low-60s. SATURDAY: Occasional rain still breezy. Highs in the upper 60s. SATURDAY NIGHT: More clouds and showers. Lows in the low-60s. Categories: Featured, Local Weather Headlines, Storm Team Weather Blog, Weather, Weather Forecast Tags: ABC 36, ABC 36 News Now, ABC 36 Storm Team Forecast, breezy, Chief Meteorologist TG Shuck, Helene, mild temperatures, scattered showers, September, unsettled weather pattern, Upper level low, Weekend Weather Forecast, wind damage