Good Sunday, everyone. Today has the potential to spawn a significant severe weather event across parts of central and eastern Kentucky. This setup is something you normally see during the spring and not on the final weekend of July.
Warm and juicy air continues to stream in from the south and southwest. This is ahead of a very potent cold front that could bring record cold temps our way in the coming days. That clash of air masses is likely to lead to a very active weather day across our region.
The atmosphere will feature much more in the way of spin and that could lead to a few tornadoes going up across the eastern Ohio Valley. That threat looks to include the eastern half of Kentucky. Damaging winds and hail will also be possible.
Here are some trackers to start things off…
Today’s risk area
Current watches
Possible watch areas 
I will be using twitter to send out quick thoughts, warnings and storm reports. Make sure to follow @kentuckyweather .
Have a great day and take care.
Not liking the sound of this forecast one little bit.Hoping the storms don’t get to bad.
We had a good shower here earlier and a couple rounds of thunder but no winds and very little lightening.
Would you say this is the most significant tornado risk since the March 2 outbreak?
I would agree with that.
I would say, though, that this has more of a May 30, 2004 look to it than a March 2, 2012.
March 2,2012 all the parameters were off the charts for a severe weather outbreak. Tomorrow there is a 10% chance of a tornado according to the SPC. On March 2,2012 it was 30% if that tells you anything. One of the very rare times our region was placed in a high risk for severe weather.
Ill be out serving as a NWS Jackson spotter between 12-9 pm @IrvinePatriot on twitter.
SPC released their latest update a short while ago (around 2am eastern/1am central). While strong damaging winds are forecast to be the threat with the highest risk on Sunday (large hail the next highest risk), there is a 10% chance of a tornado within 25 miles of any point in northeast KY, southern OH and western WV. Somewhat lower twister chances in the rest of KY and in parts of TN.
As has been touched on before, there are on average few twisters this time of year in our area, and tornadoes stronger than F2/EF2 are virtually unknown in KY and TN in summer – even winter has on rare occasions seen F4/EF4 twisters in KY/TN. Thus, there have never been July tornado fatalities in KY/TN, at least in recorded history. This system is a rare threat to this zero July tornado fatalities mark, so we need to have our early warning devices ready and review safety proceedures. Can’t ignore the threat of flash flooding, strong damaging winds and lightning, either.
JKL in their latest AFD is already discussing how the worst of the storms will be North and East of Kentucky.
That is not what that red patch on the map above suggests, but you never know until it happens. It’s the weather.
The individual weather service offices do not issue Tornado/Severe Thunderstorm watches. The discussion was from the Jackson Weather Service.
Virgil E. says:
July 26, 2014 at 7:05 pm
This looks to be more of a SE Ohio, far NE Ky, and WVa. Event for Sunday more than anything for Central Ky.
There still is enough time in the day to decide on this!
How about now?
Lots of debris and cloud cover over East Ky right now. Would need to see that quickly dissipate in order to get these huge storms.
Wondering if the rain was factored into the forecast or if it diminishes the severe weather threat?
Sure hoping that the showers and cloud cover keeping the temps down will give us less chance for storms.Its 70* here at the moment but I suppose we have plenty of time to heat up since its still early.
Don’t mind a few storms but sure hate to see damage and power outages.
Crazy temp contrast too.. Upper 60s with clouds and showers parts of central and east. Heat index at 100 across west Ky.
Summer is protesting the invasion of Fall today. Impressive storms for July, but I hope both persons and property are safe.
Intense storm at my house……..with hail
I hope this moves out soon.
On the radar – WEIRD
One storm moving due south through fayette, while at the same time, another is moving due east out of woodford
That was brief but intense. Lexington was rocking and we had pea-sized hail on Leestown Rd.
Yea it was banging on my windows and very loud…..Glad that hail didn’t last long. I’ve seen worse but this was a pretty good storm.
Seeing blue skies now in Boyd co on one side, darkening on the other. Does the apparent clearing signify weather could be severe?
Picked up a solid two inches of rain at my house near Seneca Park. Just cloudy right now but the sun is trying to poke some holes in the clouds. All in all a great deluge with a great light show last night. Happy yard right now.
hikes point is grateful.
no fade or split this time.
I know, what gives. You must be right down the road from me. I’m back behind Bearno’s Pizza.
Kelly, your at Bowman Field side off Taylorsville Rd?
Hey, 1.1 inches of rain in the east frankfort tundra, No drought buster but nice for a change!
I thought you would be outside counting raindrops all day.
Had a storm go east of us bout 1:30 a.m. and have had a few showers with main storms breaking up over us with MAYBE 1/4 inch all total. More storms are to our north & west but they also seem to be moving south of us. Well, some rain is better than none, I guess. Sure glad some of you had some decent rain.
If those storms start firing up in Ohio, Im willing to bet that zaps all the energy here in KY.
I hope so. I don’t want tornados
Why was the tornado watch just posted? From radar this should be the last storm for Woodford. Are there suppose to be more blooming later this evening?
Party, from what I read the sun is going to come out and things will really fire up. I hope I read wrong.
Patty
Still have to wait for the cold front. I don’t know if any storms will be all that strong considering how worked over the atmosphere is. Guess we will wait and see.
Louisvillle is 85 degrees thats almost a 10 degree jump in about a hour.
Extremely!!!!! muggy in the metro. Just walking briefly outside had to change my shirt. Little breeze now.
Anyone in Russell Co can give an update?
77 degree dewpoint at Louisville…ugh.
Late to the party today. Been without power all night, got it back after 9 this morning. Been touring communities around my end of town, Valley Station, PRP area. Lots of tree damage, especially to Bradford Pear trees. Did get 1.8″ rain. Finally got rain. Lightning show was one of the most vivid I’ve seen in a few years.
The lightning was spectacular. We had heavy rain and lightning but no winds to speak of. I live on the leeward side of a hill near Iroquois Park so it blows over us. I could hear it last night above the trees.
Are we expecting more redevelopment after the clearing for EKY?
Looks like the severe risk might have been overplayed here in southern and eastern KY. After this round moves through, looks like decent clearing.
Not here in clay co. been one warning after another. trees down in places, roofs blown off a house ive heard on scanner somewhere. been ruff here. i thinknanother warning issued for my area till 4:45
I got what you may been saying now. after all this cluster of storms is over you think its over with. i think there is a boundary storms keep reforming along this boundry, hitting same areas over and over, training like storms.
It does look like what u was thinking on radar but the reforming same areas sorta goes against what radar looks like far as clearing. must be a cap keeping storms in northern parts from forming. se ky keeps getting slammed.
Looked like a nasty cell near Roark in Leslie county.
There’s a decent cap in north central ky keeping storms in check from redevelopment as the cold front gets closer will be interesting to see if the cap gets broken.
Louisville is now at 90 degrees heat index 102 some heat indexes in western Ky approaching 110.
The cell moving into southern Leslie co. has quite the appendage sticking out of it…
Agreed. That is a mean looking cell. Fortunately that’s a very rural area with few people.
A very rural area, with few people in it…. Thank goodness! SMH
As Prelude mentioned, cap over north central KY is very much in place, this seems like it would prevent a squall line developing that would march into south central and eastern KY. Most of the stuff seems to be firing over the same areas, leading to training of storms ,causing more in the way of runoff and flash flooding.
Any thoughts that this would be a spring like severe weather outbreak should be put to rest.
Storm relative velocity signature is very nasty looking in SE Ky. Take cover folks.
Don’t worry, all…Reed Timmer is on it! LOL!
We had golf ball size hail, and a good roar for a few minutes,
Dew point approaching 80 in spots! Thats the air you can drink!
Western KY is now under a heat advisory
So lets break this down. Western KY under a heat advisory, Tornado Watches and some warnings have taken place. Golf ball size hail has happen severe thunderstorm warnings have occurred, damaging winds has taken place and there are some still without power. Flash flooding has occurred extremely dangerous cloud to ground lightning has happen all in the same day depending where you live in the commonwealth. Thats pretty impressive.
I forgot to add some places a few hours ago were sitting in the mid 70’s and within two hours some locations have jumped 20 degrees. I’ll include that in to the same day event
It is the day after tomorrow. LOL.
I have to agree with my other Louisville folks. Lighting last night was better than watching Thunder Over Louisville. Blew a chimney apart seven houses down and a telephone pole was splintered a street over. Also thanks for the rain Mother Nature and to CB for keeping us all informed.
The warm air and humidity has built back up, so could be interesting when the cool air arrives.