Good Wednesday, folks. It’s been as quiet of a severe weather season here in Kentucky as I can ever remember. If this season is going to crank up, it has better hurry because it’s running out of time. I remember thinking something similar back in May. 2004 then the lid blew off in late May. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen this go ’round, but some severe weather is possible today.
Low pressure will lift northward across western Kentucky this afternoon and evening. That puts much of the state in an area that is usually primed for strong and severe thunderstorms. Damaging winds and large hail are always the primary threats, but there’s enough spin in the atmosphere to create a few tornado spin ups.
Torrential rain and a ton of lightning will be noted with the storms that go up. The severe threat diminishes from west to east overnight as chilly air blows in. Gusty showers will carry us into Thursday with highs in the upper 50s and low 60s.
Let’s track today’s severe storms potential…
Today’s Risk Area
Current Watches
Possible Watch Areas 
Rainfall Since Midnight
Current temperatures
Winds
WKYT Studio Lexington
I-75 @ Winchester Road Lexington
I-75 @ Iron Works Pike Lexington
I-75 @ Clays Ferry Bridge South Between Lexington and Richmond
US 60 @ US 127 Frankfort
US 127 @ Frankfort Frankfort
View of Downtown Cynthiana
I-75 at MP 36 London
I-71/I-75 at Buttermilk Pike Near Covington
I-71/I-75 at Mt. Zion Rd. Near Covington
I-64 @ 3rd St. Exit Louisville
Downtown Louisville @ 2nd & Broadway Louisville
I-65 @ 234 Near Bowling Green
I-24 MP 7 @ US 62 Paducah
I will have updates as I can and will send out rapid fire twitter updates from @kentuckyweather. I will also have the latest breaking weather on WKYT-TV.
Have a great day and take care.
I see a lot of rain on the radar. I hope that keeps the severe stuff. To a minimum.
Wow the fog on the Clays Ferry cam is beautiful this morning. The camera is placed just above the valley fog and made for a cool sight to look at. It is now dissipating. As for the rest of today, I hope we get in on some good action from storms. I love the whole partly cloudy sky and scattered storms thing for the past few days, it makes for beautiful, high-towering cumulonimbus cloud watching. Also can’t wait for the cool down, I’ve had to turn the AC on all this week and that hasn’t happened since last early fall.
Looks like clouds are clearing across a lot of the region. Not a good sign if you want the storms to stay away.
Not looking forward to whats behind the cold front. Low 60s for highs is not what I like to see in May. It’s time to open the pools folks!
Thanks Chris. We had a pretty doggone good storm yesterday afternoon here in Somerset. Over night we had some thunder, but I don’t think it ever rained. I would bet that we got over an inch from the storm yesterday afternoon!
Today looks to be interesting to say the least. Don’t mind a good thunderstorm but I hope that it doesn’t get too severe. I hope everyone has a great (and safe) day! Thanks Chris for keeping us ahead of the weather and up to date!
Some loud thunder this morning to wake up with in frankfort, sounds like some ruff stuff might be coming in later, stay safe folks!
Severe thunderstorm watch issuance probabiity at 80% for the afternoon. SPC mesoscale discussion suggested a more than minimal threat for tornados.
and right on cue….
NWS has issued a tornado watch for Bath, Elliott, Estill, Fleming, Menifee, Montgomery, Powell, Rowan, Laural, McCreary, Pulaski, Rockcastle, Wayne, Whitley, Breathitt, Clay, Jackson, Knox, Lee, Magoffin, Morgan, Owsley, and Wolf.
Feels ripe for bad storms in frankfort today, this might be the worst sever weather of the season for KY today!
S C A R Y storm in northwest Lex……..I don’t like it……
There is a 31 degree temperature difference from western ky to eastern ky. Pretty impressive.
I might get slammed for saying this but I wouldn’t want to be in Fulton County right now.
As has been the case all Spring, anything of note as far as severe weather is remaining well west of London. This has been a rather wimpy severe weather season, and looks to be mostly a dud as we quickly approach June and the summer months.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Severe weather has been wimpy for most of KY and we should all be thankful for that.
I hope it stays wimpy but with all this heat waiting to clash with the cold it’s not giving me a good feeling.Now seeing a tornado watch issued hasn’t made me feel better.Maybe the worst will cross over us before dark.Storms are bad enough but I especially hate when they come in the night.I suppose I will feel better once the daytime highs drop 20 degrees.Hoping Ky doesn’t get a lot of damage from this.
be careful what u wish for BRYANT, between 5 and 8 it will get funky like a monkey in ouir area.. better be ready..
Don’t think we’ll see much at all. Probably heavy rains for a bit once the main action rolls through. The rest of the cells look well west and staying that way. Not sure why they even bothered extending a watch out this east.
Apparently they have dropped the tornado watch and just added a flood watch.Looks like on radar that once the rain makes it here it will trail over us for a good while.Maybe we won’t have any heavy winds to cause damage.The rains cooling the air might help us out as far as keeping the really bad weather from happening.Sure hope so.
Just a steady rain with some thunder in frankfort so far, looks like more forming south and moving north, as Chris stated flooding might become the bigger threat with this stuff tonight?
I am praying it just keeps raining so maybe the storms wont get to bad…not flooding rains just rain.
I hope the rains keep the temps down.Certainly don’t want to see anyone dealing with flood waters either.Its still about 84 degrees here and has been muggy and overcast all day.Glad the sun hasn’t come out and pushed the temps up more.
The weather channel guy just now said temps were already down to the 40s in Arkansas.
Very large hail causing severe damage reported in Adams County, Ohio, just across the river from Maysville.
Now you watch, if they (NWS) put us back in the watch later tonight, most people will have let their guard down. Thanks Chris!!
Looks like Eastern Kentucky got the shaft from this system today, basically south of I-64 and east of I-75 got virtually nothing
Fine by me the less severe weather the better
Another wimpy event for Richmond- still not hits since last year. As long as we get rain to cover the water table, I am good with wimpy 🙂
Some good news. All Tornado Watches and Severe Thunderstorm Watches close to us have been allowed to expire or have been cancelled.
But as CB touched on, still could be a few strong if not severe storms. Have to watch out for some flooding issues.
Things were rough to our north; Cedarville OH reports damage and a few injuries from a twister there.
Its Ironic, many of the same people that are so deathly afraid of severe weather are the same that cheer blissfully for crippling snow storms that tend to negatively affect many more people every year than severe thunderstorms..
I like some snow but anything that isn’t gone by the second day is to much for me.Even that much isolates me for a week since I live on a very steep hill.I have only been in areas where is snows since 2005 so haven’t really seen much snow as far as accumulations.Probably 3 inches has been the biggest snow for me.
So glad the weather hasn’t gotten bad.Temps are in the low 60s now and not so much as a rumble of thunder all evening.Just a very light rain.