Florida and other southern states are bracing for the impact of Hurricane Helene, a Category three hurricane that could grow to Category four before making landfall.

It's expected to bring heavy rain to Kentucky in the next few days.

And the state is getting ready.

Governor Andy Beshear urges everyone to keep an eye on Helene.

The impacts of this storm should be taken seriously.

And I encourage everyone in Kentucky to be weather aware of what we're going to see in the coming days.

As of now, we expect the remnants of the hurricane to begin affecting Kentucky this evening and especially into Friday.

But rain may continue all the way through Sunday and accumulate in various places.

The governor says he hasn't declared a state of emergency in Kentucky, as some other southern governors have.

But he says he will if it becomes necessary.

Arlene will make landfall on Florida's Big Bend Coast tonight, bringing catastrophic and life threatening storm surge and flash flooding, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Our Christy Dutton discusses how impact on our Kentucky weather with National Weather Service.

Meteorologist John Gordon.

John, while we're not expecting to see the catastrophic conditions that Florida and some of the Southeast may experience from Hurricane Helene in the Bluegrass State, we are expecting to be impacted.

Can you tell us a little bit about the timing of that and what we can expect?

Yes, absolutely.

Helene is coming to Kentucky.

That's a fact.

We've been trying to tell folks that we're not going to get what they're getting in the big bend.

We're going to be getting a lot of wind and rain tomorrow.

Portions of the commonwealth will get between two and four inches of rain and the wind will be kicking up from the southeast part of the state up through Lexington.

And Frankfurt, eventually in the Louisville.

Well, when somewhere between 25 gusting to 40, there will be some gusts in the 50, probably in an area from about Berea and Lexington towards Louisville in the afternoon.

We're worried about what's called the dry slot.

If we get a little sun in between about two and 5:00 tomorrow.

Windy won't even begin to describe it.

Okay.

So what is this wind going to do?

What do we need to prepare for?

And what can 40, 50 mile an hour wind gusts do?

Great question.

So, folks, don't leave things lying around your yard like a trampoline that's not anchored in garbage cans.

There's things that you can do that are out there right now that you can move again and kind of protect yourself.

If you're in a trucking company to gas those diesels up, do not go empty tomorrow down the interstate.

The winds are going to be blowing.

We're going to have very hard, heavy rain.

Nursing, if you've been delaying and procrastinating, getting your windshield wipers, get those wipers, go to your local place.

I'll put them on for you.

Get your wipers.

It's going to be really nasty tomorrow.

Okay.

Well, let's talk about the rain.

Is it going to be coming down so hard that for people driving maybe in the afternoon they're going to have to pull over?

There will be waves of it.

It will not be continuous like that, but there will be some waves.

Some of these bands that pivot from the southeast to the northwest that will be kind of bad and where you have to put your flashers on or slow down.

Motorcyclist.

Yeah, you want to get onto those overpasses, underpasses and kind of protect yourself.

It's going to be nasty tomorrow.

And last but not least, there's about a 2% probability there might be one or two thunderstorms that kind of rotate.

We have to watch the threat of very, very, very isolated tornadoes.

And what about flooding and people driving on the roads?

Is that going to be an issue for tomorrow?

Yeah, thanks for saying that.

Yeah, Turn around, don't drown.

We're very dry in Kentucky.

We're very dry, but there's a lot of rain coming at us.

We've had rain already this week.

So is it steady rain?

Not a problem at all.

But if we get some bursts of very heavy rain, hydroplaning, some rain in some hilly country could cause some flash flooding in some spots, especially in the rugged country in the east, southeast part of the state.

Okay.

We will watch out for that.

It sounds like it's going to be a very busy start to the weekend for you all there.

Tomorrow's a bit wet, so put on your raincoats.

All right.

Thank you so much, John.