Severe storms likely Sunday evening

Meteorologist Jordan Smith has a look at your Friday evening forecast!

June 23, 2023

WTVQ News Desk,

Lexington, Kentucky (WTVQ – ABC 36): Good Friday evening everyone, we have made it to the weekend as our un summer like starts to finally come to an end. Here are todays weather headlines..

A few scattered storms will be possible on Saturday but most stay dry with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s.

A few rain showers and rumbles of thunder is possible late Sunday into the lunch hour.

Those will quickly move out and we will break out into sunshine and temperatures into the mid to upper 80s for the afternoon. That will fuel strong to severe thunderstorms to fire up during the evening and night. The SPC out of Norman Oklahoma has placed most of our area in a “SLIGHT” risk (level 2/5) with ALL MODES of severe weather possible. Don’t be surprised if we see further adjustments and upgrades between now and Sunday evening.

Within this “SLIGHT” risk is a hatched area. The hatched area is an area the SPC is really focusing on for the “potential” of significant severe weather. That means damaging winds 70mph+, large hail 2.00″+, and a few tornadoes. That is the area under the black dashed lines below.

If we break down our threats by one, we can see that damaging winds and large hail is our biggest threat but the tornado threat is also elevated compared to normal.

One of the main things we look in when forecasting severe weather is CAPE. That is just the amount of storm energy we have in the atmosphere. It is super high on Sunday evening.