Good Sunday afternoon, gang. The setup over the next few days is likely to feature severe thunderstorms and flooding rains across the region. The atmosphere is loading up with moisture, and rounds of thunderstorms will likely put down some significant rain amounts.
We will see the storms developing across western Kentucky this afternoon and rolling eastward this evening. Some of these storms may contain damaging winds and hail. Additional rounds of storms will move across the area on the 4th of July into Tuesday. These storms can also become severe.
While the severe threat is there, I am still much more concerned with the heavy rain and flash flood potential. I’m perplexed at the lack of Flash Flood Watches across the state. I’ll leave it at that… for now.
As we get closer to this situation, the models are falling in line and look a lot like the flash flood threat map I’ve had out for a few days now.
The Hi-Res NAM…
Yes, that model has a spot of 12.8″ of rain near Louisville. Wow! While you can’t get attached to specific totals for specific locations, this is the model showing the tremendous rain potential these storms will have.
The lower resolution of the NAM is also showing some big numbers…
That is showing an area of 8″ rains.
The even lower resolution run of the Canadian model through the middle of the week…
At this point… blanket the whole state with a Flash Flood Watch and be done with it. As we saw a few weeks ago in West Virginia, repeat summertime thunderstorm complexes are nothing to mess with.
I leave you with a all your tracking tools for the day…
Today’s risk area
Current Watches
Possible Watch Areas
I will have updates as needed. Take care.
CB, the hi-res NAM you almost have to believe is having feedback issues? Do you discount that particular model or could you see a outside chance of those totals being a outside chance of reality for somebody? Where the low-res NAM and Canadian are more realistic with rainfall totals one would think.
I don’t know if Chris actually reads these comments or not, but after this last week here in WV this is my opinion, local media is invaluable. Don’t bother with The Weather Channel, any national people at all really, and IMO the NWS guys are often late to the game because they are too busy being snotty on Twitter. When you have flood waters rushing towards your home, you don’t care whose weather model was more accurate. I couldnt even start to to add up the hours the local WV media has put in this last week, especially our meteorologists. They have been absolutely fantastic. All three Charleston stations were warning of flooding days before it hit while national people were screaming derecho.
My point is, don’t get hung up on what watches or warnings are out, don’t watch The Weather Channel and expect to be informed and thank your local media for pretty much putting their lives on hold every time there is a disaster so they can keep their viewers informed and safe. And most importantly, LISTEN TO THEM, get a local weather app! Local met’s don’t scream that the sky is falling unless it is. Our sky fell in WV but we had numerous local meteorologists walking us through it as best as they could and I’m sure that they saved many lives.
Thanks for the update. Hopefully those big numbers don’t come to fruition.
Can someone explain what the difference is between high resolution nam and low resolution nam? I think of resolution as video on TV, higher resolution means more lines and generally better quality picture…..but what does it mean for weather models?
It’s the same concept. The higher the resolution on a model, the model is able to run at higher detail. Models have “pixels” too, if you zoom in on the new hi-res Euro model compared to the old one, there is a significant difference. One could show 12″ rain over the entire city, and a higher res models could show 12″ rain over a few blocks in a neighborhood.
In the last SPC update, the tornado risk for western and central parts of Kentucky was raised from 2% to 5%. The tornado risk remains relatively low, but enough for the recent watches to be Tornado Watches not Severe Thunderstorm Watches. Somewhat higher chances of strong damaging winds. As CB has stated, be on guard for as least some flash flooding issues.
We currently have a tornado watch issued for us. I can do without the severe stuff, however, if that is what I have to put-up with to get some rain, I’ll take it. In our cumminity of Rockcastle county, we have only had .45 ” of rain since Memorial Day. The rains have missed us in all directions. Just 2 miles from us they got 1.5″ a few days ago.
My parents live in the Chattanooga/Cleveland TN area which is currently about nine inches below normal rainfall wise.
Despite us getting nearly two inches of rain the other day, Nashville still has roughly a six inch deficit.
Meanwhile, places like Louisville and Paducah are near normal. Kind of crazy.
The SPC now saying there will be an increasing strong damaging wind threat in Kentucky into the evening.
Still a chance of an isolated twister or two, but not a sky high tornado threat.
The summer months on average do not have very big tornado threats. In about 150 years of records, no tornado deaths have ever occurred in Kentucky and Tennessee during July. But even an EF1 twister can still destroy a mobile home, and nighttime tornadoes are of course even more of a hazard.
Stay safe everyone!
It’s funny that you say that, aside from tornado’s , the worst storms I ever remember seeing, downbursts, intense lighting, extreme rain/wind, have been in july, august, sept.
The worst ‘severe’ thunderstorm I can ever remember living through was July 20, 1986. The fact I remember the date should tell you it was bad.
Going back to my childhood, I recall losing power many times during summer t-storms but not as often during spring storms.
I was not directly affected by the July 2012 derecho, but it still stands out in my mind. Watching that thing on radar was amazing.