Good Saturday, everyone. I wanted to drop by for a quick update on the potential for severe storms and significant flooding. The setup is primed to deliver a big event to parts of the bluegrass state.
The threat for flash flooding and flooding is about as high as you will ever find it around here. My concern for a major flood event continues to grow for a large swath of Kentucky real estate. Here’s the area to really watch as we go through Sunday morning…
Areas within the major flood risk may pick up a general 1″-3″ of rain during this time, with locally higher amounts. Given the saturated ground, full waterways and full creeks and streams, those totals could be devastating for some areas.
Farther east and southeast, the rains have not been as heavy of late, but morning rains were close to 1″ in some areas. Another 1″-2″ will be possible in the east and southeast, with some flooding possible.
The severe weather threat continues for much of Kentucky, especially the west and central. Damaging winds and a few tornadoes are possible this evening into the wee hours of Sunday morning. The greatest tornado threat is across the west…
Here’s the latest from the SPC…
Given the extremely wet ground, we may see a lot of uprooted trees from tonight’s storms.
Please stay alert to the changing weather conditions through tonight. Damaging winds, tornadoes and a major flood event are possible in our region. I will update the blog as needed and will be sending out warnings, thoughts and reports via my @kentuckyweather twitter feed.
As always, the blog is set to track our severe weather event. Don’t forget to use the interactive radar to track storms to street level and to pull up live feeds from storm chasers anywhere in the country. Track away…
Current watches
Possible watch areas
Hamburg Area from WKYT Studio
Lexington
Fifth Third Pavilion Live Cam
Downtown Lexington
I-75 @ Newtown Pike
Lexington
US 60 @ US 127
Frankfort
Winchester
I-275 approaching KY 20/Airport
Near Covington
I-71/I-75 at Buttermilk Pike
Near Covington
Louisville
Bardstown
I-64 at KY-801
Near Morehead
Natcher Parkway MP 5
Near Bowling Green
US 41A Gate 5 Fort Campbell Entrance
Fort Campbell
I-24 MP 4 @ US 60
Paducah
Stay safe and take care.
Not liking the looks of that moisture plume in western KY moving up the Ohio River toward my area near Louisville for later.
This may go down as Kentucky’s wettest February ever. Of so many reporting stations statewide, 3 locations have already topped the 10″ mark for the month, while I have 13 other locations greater than 8″ poised to move higher after tonight’s rains. And we still have another threat next week? Blah.
I am at 10.48 here at the house but 20 miles up the road and a few thousand feet up, Black Mt. is over 12 inches for the month
http://www.kymesonet.org/historical_data.php
So far, I have Black Mt. and the ones in Barbourville and Whitley City, both of those are Mesonet sites as well. Hopefully, the expected rainfall will not repeat late last week’s drama.
Even though the developing low in Ark/Missouri is suppose to speed the front through eastern KY late tonight into early Sunday As it rejects into the Great Lakes, I could still see some areas exceeding a couple inches if any t-storms form into a squall and holds together with individual cells ahead of the line. As CB has already mentioned, next week looks rough with WPC already honing in on TN/KY getting over 2 inches widespread for Wednesday/Thursday….interesting times around our region!
“…as it [the low] ejects”….have to love the silly errors when typing anything through a phone.
I have lost all confidence in NWS river predictors. Friday, Scioto County EMA wanted all flood gates erected in Portsmouth because the river was predicted to crest between 61-64 feet.By the afternoon, they were predicting 59 feet by this Tuesday, with “significant rises” thereafter. Everyone along the river started moving out.Friday night it was lowered to 58 feet. Today at noon updated to 53.5 Monday morning. What gives?
That was based on rainfall from last two nights which ended up being a lot less than forecast. So they had to lower the projections because the rainfall that was suppose to happen was lighter than they expected. It could change again if more rain occurs tonight or less rain than they are forecasting.
In the SPC’s recent update, at least western Kentucky has a somewhat lower tornado threat for later today compared to what the SPC had this morning. Still can’t let our guard down, especially for nighttime tornadoes which can be extra dangerous.
SPC is giving an 80% chance of a new Tornado Watch being issued for western parts of Kentucky and Tennessee.
New warning coming in from Spotter Network in western KY
Montgomery county and Stewart county in Tennessee, near KY border…Severe T’storm warning.
Tornado Watch now in effect for western KY and western TN
PWATs in range of 1.3 to 1.5 for much of western KY. If anything else, another hit with flash flooding in those regions overnight. As I write this, Mayfield has now received over 6.5″ since Wednesday, and it looks like a whole lot more to come.
Even with a bit less instability compared to Arkansas, still of course need to be on guard. Even an EF1 can destroy a mobile home.
As if the flood threat wasn’t enough.
Temps appear colder than forecast. Wonder if means storms later will be less of an issue.
No
It appears to be going more north.
It seems that all storms that could even approach severe limits seem to happen lately in late evening into the night for central and eastern ky. No good for chasing.
Is this thing ever going to move east??
It is now.
Praying for no tornados ! Very scary
As of 9pm est, Louisville’s February precipitation total stands at 9.44″, just 0.40″ away from tying all-time wettest February. Looking at radar, I think we will be looking at a new record very soon.
I’m babysitting my basement, as water is coming in…gonna be a long night.
Oh, yeah, between 2 and 3″ has fallen in several locations of Louisville Metro today, most of it within the last couple of hours
Will we see any of the heavy rain and storms in the greenup/ Boyd county area.
How ridiculous that Madison County is not in the tornado watch, yet Garrard is.
Possible tornado on ground in Clarksville TN…just east of them earlier, a possible tornado in Adairsville turns deadly.
Confirmed large tornado northeast of Clarksville TN, near Guthrie KY…Particularly Dangerous Situation
“It was something.” This from a spotter surveying damage. Reports of scene looks like a war zone. Conducting head count from apartment complexes. “Debris everywhere”. Cannot tell if this is from near Guthrie.
The line almost seemed to split up as it was about to hit Madison County. Still a while to go yet. Very windy.