Showers and thunderstorms will move across the Ohio Valley region from Tuesday into Saturday, said Ken Batty, meteorologist with the Charleston Bureau of the National Weather Service.

Tuesday, August 24, 1999

Showers and thunderstorms will move across the Ohio Valley region from Tuesday into Saturday, said Ken Batty, meteorologist with the Charleston Bureau of the National Weather Service.

"We’re kind of in for a more unsettled weather pattern," Batty said. "We’re hoping that most areas will see showers and thunderstorms. The temperatures won’t be as hot, either, because of increased cloud cover."

Unlike the recent bursts of rain, Batty said the weather service expects this weather pattern to hang around for a few days.

"It should take its time moving across the Ohio Valley," he said. "There should be a good bit of getting wet."

But there’s no way to tell whether or not the rain will be enough to alleviate the county’s drought-like conditions, Batty added.

"Every drop helps, but, in terms of helping farmers, it might be getting too late," he said. "But all the rain we get helps the top soil. We just have to see how much falls before we will know if it will help the ground water or not."

There’s also no way of predicting how much of a storm is coming this way, Batty said.

"In this type of hot weather, anytime you get showers and thunderstorms, you run the chance of getting August lightning," he said. "But we cannot predict the frequency of the lightning. We think, with the heat being held down, in a lot of cases, you will get those lightning displays."

Although the rain will last longer than most storms the area has experienced this summer, it does not mean the drought is over.

"A week from now, during the last few days of August, it will start warming up again," Batty said. "This is a weather pattern we haven’t been in all year. And if we were in a pattern like this all year, we wouldn’t be in a drought.

"We’re picturing a lot of clouds with temperatures in the high 70s. The temperatures will be struggling to get into the 80s. It should stay like that until at least Thursday. We should experience a cold front Saturday and drier weather will come in after that. Then it should start warming back up again."

Forecasters and meteorologists probably will not be able to predict the last day the county will be considered in a drought, Batty said.

"Droughts come and go," he said. "You can never say when a drought ends. They slowly develop and, in most cases, they slowly wane. The only way we could tell the exact date a drought ends is if a tropical storm came and dumped five to six inches on us."