Good Thursday to one and all. We are coming off of a wild and wooly severe weather Wednesday across the bluegrass state. Tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail combined to wreak havoc in many Kentucky communities. As hard as it may be to believe… we likely have more severe storms to contend with on Friday.
The severe weather numbers from Wednesday continue to add up. Kentucky was ground zero for the daytime outbreak…
Teams from the National Weather Service will continue to survey the damage and determine if tornadoes or straight line winds caused the damage in some of the harder hit areas. I suspect our tornado number to rise today.
The actual weather today looks good with temps hitting the upper 50s and low 60s for many under mostly sunny skies.
Another massive storm will begin to crank across the plains states later today and tonight. This will head toward the western Great Lakes late Friday into Saturday. Warm air will surge in here overnight and this may get a few storms going… especially across the west. The Storm Prediction Center has that part of the state in the slight risk for severe weather tonight…
I am becoming very concerned for a major severe weather outbreak across our region Friday into Friday evening. The setup appears to favor lines of damaging wind producing thunderstorms that can also spawn a few violent tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center already has a Moderate Risk for severe weather for much of Kentucky…
This could get ugly and I urge you to pay close attention to later updates on how the severe threat plays out.
The other big news of Wednesday was the announcement that I am returning to WKYT-TV in Lexington as Chief Meteorologist. My first day on the air will be Monday, March 5th. Read all about it on WKYT and Kentucky.com.
Have a great Thursday and take care.
Great to have you back Chris!
sad to hear you’re leaving wsaz, but on the flipside…I’m in Kentucky so yay!!! looking forward to following your blog here now 🙂
I’m with you Amber. I hate that he’s leaving WSAZ but I’m in KY and get WKYT also! The only differnece now is that Chris will experience the weather first instead of me.
I am so excited your back!!!!!! I am always on this site but never comment. Your the greatest congrats! Glad to have you in our area! 🙂
Glad to have you back at WKYT, Chris!! Congratulations!! I log on to this site first thing every night when I get home from work.
I’m a migrant blog reader from Chris’s WSAZ horde of fans. Nice blog!!!
Congratulations! What a way to kick off the start of meteorological spring!! But we sure will miss you & your family around here
Hey, if we can’t have the snow…..hearing you will be back, Chris, is even better news than we could imagine. Great to have you back!!
My thoughts exactly. Great news to hear you’re back as chief meteorologist! Congratulations, Chris!
I know ones who read this blog are from the Louisville area. We’ve had our share of some good weather guys and gals. I rank you right up there with some of the best in the Louisville area. You’re knowledgeable, enthusiastic, down to earth, personable, and still in your prime. I’m still a big Belski fan and of Tom Wills and Ken Schulz as well. I think Lexington is proud and fortunate to have you back with them. Best wishes to TG.
I recorded the WKYT news and woke up at 4 a.m. To watch it. HOORAY!! I am so happy!!!
Chris, this is the greatest news! I had a feeling that this might be in the works and so glad that it has happened. Welcome back! Are you still going to do this blog?
NOOOOOO…I have satellite and don’t get WKYT 🙁
I so hope you continue this blog, Chris, or I won’t get any accurate weather predictions. Please keep this blog going.
Tammy, you can watch WKYT news from your computer at 6 and 11 they have a live stream. Just go to their website scroll down a little and you will see a red button that says watch live. I can’t speak for Chris but he started this blog when he was at WKYT and my thinking is he will keep it going. Hope that helps.
Welcome back, Chris!
So happy to hear the news! We LOVE Chris!
Congrats on your new job. Wish the best for u and ur family! I have followed ur blog on wsaz for quite a while! U will be missed greatly there!
I’m so happy to have our weather dude back!! By the way, thanks for all the tweets yesterday!! I work in a room with no outside windows in the middle of a manufacturing plant! You kept me aware of what was happening on the “outside” and I was able report to fellow employees that had relatives in surrounding counties what was going on in the rest of the state!! Great job!
WOOT! Your coming back!!! Hate to see TG leave but understand why.
Congratulations Chris!
Just a question about this severe event tomorrow… any estimations of what time this will start developing? Thanks 🙂
So excited that you are coming back! You are the greatest!!
Congratulations Chris, and once again, welcome home!
Chris, so happy to have you back @ WKYT! Going to miss TG, but I could not think of a better replacement. Congrats!
Congratulations Chris! My Granny can watch you now 🙂 AND, please oh please, tell me you are NOT qutting the blog! I will be so upset!!
As a side note………has the timing of this storm become more clear today? Are we talking mid afternoon for South Central Kentucky?
BGBECKY, the BLOG is a institution dear, this will be around decades from now!!!!!!!!!!!
the man,the myth the LEGEND!! back er he belongs!!!!!
Thanks for the clarification Rolo! 🙂
Woo hoo!! I’m so glad you are coming home! Thank you for the dedication to all of your blog family!
Congrats Chris. You know the people in LEX love you more. 🙂
As for Friday, I can’t stress enough that we need to spread the word to family and friends to take this seriously. We can’t prevent houses from being blown away, but we CAN keep fatalities down, hopefully to zero with awareness and planning.
Storm situation does seem to have a medium chance for Friday to be rough.
Lexington is losing a great met with TG, but gaining a great met with CB!
Welcome home, Mr. Bailey!
Best news I have heard all winter! So glad to have you back where you belong in LexVegas. If we can’t have a snowy winter then at least we have a ray of sunshine…permanently. WOO HOO!
Sooo glad your back at WKYT. Yeahhhhhhhhh.
Congrat’s Chris… so glad to get you back in Lexington!!!!
Welcome home Chris, WKYT hit the lottery, AGAIN 🙂
HA!! I found you Chris, jumped over here from wsaz.com to let you know I’ll still be following your blog over here just like I did at wsaz.com. Now that’s loyalty,right? Our loss is your gain wkyt, and let me tell you ,you gained a good one !!
Congrats CB on becoming the Chief Met at WKYT. I`m so happy for you. But I`m also sad because I won`t get to watch you any more. I only get sattellite and can only get Huntington/Charleston stations. If I am ever at my mom`s in Maysville, I`ll get to watch you. I guess I`ll just have to spend more time there, right?LOL! I`m also sad to see TG go. Hope he does well in whatever he chooses to do in the future. Again, Congrats CB. I`ll miss you alot. Later my friend.
I told some people yesterday…I bet Chris is coming back to Lexington since T.G. is leaving. This is great news.
Welcome back to LEX Chris! I am sad to see T.G. leave, but I am very excited to see you come back where you belong 🙂
As for Friday’s storm set up, it looks to be a wild one… Dr.Forbes has the Tor Con at 6 for north-central, and a 7 for south-central. I live in between Ashland and Morehead and currently I am out of state, so I if you all could keep me updated on the weather situation tomorrow I would greatly appreciate it. Now would be a good time to inform family and friends of the weather situation coming up tomorrow so they can have a plan of action in place in case a warning should hit their area. Stay safe every one and Chris, it feels GREAT to have you back!
Congratulations Chris!! It will be very nice having you back in town again!
From NWS Louisville:
At this point, any severe weather threat including damaging winds
and tornadoes (some strong and long lived?) appears possible from
Friday afternoon through Friday evening. The Storm Prediction Center
made a significant upgrade to their Day 2 Outlook to include the
entire CWA solidly in a high end Moderate Risk. Aggressive mindset
from SPC adds confidence that a significant severe weather outbreak
is becoming more likely and that awareness needs to be raised.
Uh oh.
Dang, that is far more direct than the outlook for the previous storm systems.
As a resident of central Kentucky, it is our great fortune to have you back as the Chief Meteorologist of Channel 27. Congrats.
Great that you’re coming back to Lexington!
Dr. Forbes from the Weather Channel is putting central parts of KY in a 7 on his tornado scale for Friday. As Chris stated earlier this could get very ugly & scary?? I wonder if we might get a PDS issued?
SPC update on severe weather risk due out in about 2 hours from now…
Impatiently waiting for the forecast Mike.
Sad to see T.G. Go but glad to see Chris returning! Guess I will start watching the local news again. BM isn’t going to like hearing this news though;) he will loose his viewers! Haha
I am giddy bout having Chris back at WKYT…..but am concerned about the blog staying up and running. WKYT has their own weather blog, and I wonder how that will play out.
It’s not gonna change a thing, he had a blog on wkyt during his first term there and he has had one at wsaz also.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/meteomadness/significant-outbreak-of-severe-weather-and-tornadoes-friday/62262
Brutal
Don’t like that map he posted. Don’t like it at all.
That really scares me I am in Eastern Ky.I guess i will go back to the basement or the bathroom/tub,no kidding it was bad the other day and this sounds worse.God bless us all in the Path.Thanks Chris for watching over us dont forget us in Eastern Ky.
Great to have you back Chris. Welcome home!
Neat map of the predicted storms for tomorrow from the SPC
http://www.eas.slu.edu/CIPS/ANALOG/COLD/wwproducts.php?reg=EC&model=GFS212&fhr=F048&flg=&HH=-99&map=SVR
Okay, so now I want to know if Chris was truly sick last week when he had those rather short updates or if he was at WKYT shooting the promos they are running!! (which make me smile every time I see one)
And I have to feel just a bit bad for TG, who is great in every way. He had his moment briefly yesterday when we were all shocked and sad that he was leaving. Unable to bask in the kind words being sent his way, he had to go on the air by early afternoon and worked nonstop until the announcement was made about Chris at 11 p.m. After that, it was all, “Hooray, Chris is back!!! We’re so excited that Chris is back!!!”
Poor TG. 🙂
Friday is going to be so scary. I HATE SEVERE WEATHER!!!!!
Well, I will say on here that I am sad that T.G. is leaving and wish him and his family all the best…and that WKYT weather is going down the toilet with his departure. 😉 😉 😉
Actually I hope WKYT gives Chris more than like 60 seconds to talk about the weather. When I am able to watch, it seems like T.G. (as well as Todd and Kari) are on and off the air before you can blink an eye.
Anyway, enough of that. Will be highly interested to see what happens with the weather tomorrow.
A slam dunk, Chris! Glad you’re back!
Alex Sosnowski at Accuweather says that tomorrow could be similar to the super outbreak of April 3rd, 1974. “Dangerous Tornado Swarm” on their website. But don’t panic everyone.
Too late Feeder I have already panicked.
Update as ASAP, Chris. People are starting to get very worried around here, including myself.
Alright!! Welcome home, CB!! 😀 And with tomorrow’s forecast, the timing couldn’t be more appropriate.
Wow, just looked over the WRF model. Looks eerily similar to the Wednesday setup. Think I’ll work on a blog update…
Everybody needs to be watching this as early as sunrise.
Anyone looking at data for tomorrow seen what the helicity values are for CKy?
Henry M. says Cincy, Lex and Lou will be ground zero for this event. What is doubly frightening is these may not be the EF0-EF2 storms we typically see in this are. These could be EF3 or higher.
Interestingly, the NWS is going opposite of him and suggesting that the worst of this could set up southeast of here… in JKLs forecast area and then down into eastern TN.
It’s going to be interesting to watch how this plays out. But EHI values are unreal in southern Ohio tomorrow…and the Loserville-Cincy area will have closer proximity to the low…so who knows? Maybe everybody will get in on the action.
Welcome back Chris and good luck to T.G. in whatever road he chooses now.
Looks like this won’t extend as far to the east as Wednesday if I’m correct, although it looks like a potentially dangerous severe weather outbreak for many. I’m anxious to know more specifics on this system so I’ll be waiting for an update.
Wow, talk about the Spring. . .hate to see TG leave WKYT, wish him the best in his future endeavors. But so glad to hear that ya are coming back to our neck of the woods. Really missed your reports when you were previously at KYT. Welcome you and your family back home.
Top 15 analog years suggest strong support for severe weather outbreak with long-tracked tornadoes possible. Now, we need to figure out where those may possibly set up…
T.G. will be missed. I also am sad to see him go. But at the same time, I am elated to see Chris come home! Again, WELCOME HOME CHRIS!!!
Great to see you back where you belong. It would be awesome if you were at the game Saturday and they let you come out and do the “Y”. A fitting tribute I would think.
Next winter maybe you can do something to rid Central Ky of the curse we’ve been under for the last several years with regards to the lack of snow.
It’s about time you come back home .
It’s great to hear that you’re coming back! I hope the other three are staying too. We love all of you!
After going back and reading the other posts, I see that TG is leaving. We’re going to miss him!
OMG!!! That is awesome, it will be great to see our friendly weather dude back on Lexington, I’m sure excited!!! 🙂
Friday will be a very nasty day. I think the NAM may be a bit to extreme with the instabilty though. Welcome back to WKYT Chris you’re first day Monday may feature a snow swath across I-64!
NWS has confirmed a tornado touched down in Morgan County Kentucky. With winds possibly reaching 120 MPH.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/KY/106.html#REP
Now I’m starting to get very scared!
Brian Goode has a nice update on the WAVE blog.
please add Chris Baily’s new WKYT facebook page to your facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/ChrisBaileyWKYT
I totally missed all this but where did TG go and why is he leaving? What happened?
First of all, WELCOME back Chris Bailey! We’re so glad to have you back! 😀
Second of all, did anyone see the updated SPC Probability map? It look like we’re in for a crazy outbreak.
http://spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day2probotlk_1730_any.gif