Good afternoon gang. I wanted to drop by for a quick update on an article I read in today’s Lexington Herald Leader about the flood cleanup in eastern Kentucky. Here is what was splashed on the front page of the paper…

More Rain In Forecast, Further Flooding Not Expected

Now here is an excerpt from the article…

More rain could be on the way to Eastern Kentucky this week, but it is not expected to cause further flooding, said David Stamper, observation program leader at the National Weather Service in Jackson.

Stamper said there is a 40 to 50 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms beginning Wednesday and continuing through the rest of the week.

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/792296.html

I am rooting hard for that statement to be correct. But given where we are in terms of just coming off of an historic flood in some areas with a fully saturated ground… why does the NWS continue to make such definitive statements about the weather days in advance? The pattern certainly suggests we do run the risk of some heavy rains later this week into the weekend that MAY cause additional flooding problems.  Again… I hope the statement above is spot on as the last thing we need is more heavy rains and flooding.

But I only have to take you back to last Thursday when a forecast discussion from Jackson said this about this past weekend…

THE US MODELS ALMOST SEEMED TO BE DEALING WITH A BIT OF CONVECTIVE FEEDBACK.
THE PRECIP AMOUNT IS OF BIG CONCERN DUE TO THE ANTECEDENT CONDITIONS
WITH WET SOIL AND RIVERS ALREADY RUNNING HIGH. DECIDED TO GO WITH THE
EUROPEAN SOLUTION AND KEEP THE PRECIPITATION GENERALLY A BIT LESS
THAN AND INCH AS OPPOSED TO THE 2 INCH FORECAST WITH THE GFS. THE
EXACT LOCATION OF THE HEAVIEST BAND IS STILL IN DOUBT DUE TO THE
MODEL DIFFERENCES…BUT GENERALLY FAVORED THE EUROPEAN SOLUTION.

I will give the fine folks in Jackson a big kudos for being OUTSTANDING during the flood event. They were on top of it as soon as the rains moved in Friday afternoon and they were flat out awesome during the duration of the event.

Take care.