Severe storms and flooding rains possible late week

It felt much more like spring across Central and Eastern Kentucky Wednesday and as a warm front arced through the region bringing much warmer air to the commonwealth. With a strong southwest wind gusting over 45 miles per hour at times, afternoon highs surged into the upper 70s and low 80s! Hopefully you enjoyed the dry weather because we are looking at several days of storms and heavy rain potential heading into this weekend.

A strong area of low pressure will push a cold front eastward late Wednesday evening and into early Thursday bringing another round of strong to severe storms to Central and Eastern Kentucky. Isolated supercells are expected to produce tornadoes in far Western Kentucky before forming a squall line of thunderstorms that will race eastward through Wednesday evening. While all modes of severe weather are possible, damaging winds with spin-up tornadoes within the line looks to be the likely scenario. Right now the timing has the line moving into Central Kentucky toward Midnight before slowly spreading eastward into the early hours of Thursday. Once again this will be an overnight event so you need to have a way to get weather alerts while you are sleeping. The Storm Prediction Center has a Level 3 severe weather risk (out of 5) for the Bluegrass Region and into Southern Kentucky with a level 2 risk for most of Eastern Kentucky.

The active weather will continue into Thursday with more heavy rain producing thunderstorms as the frontal boundary stalls out just to our north. There is a continuing threat for strong to severe storms as the entire state is under a Level 2 severe risk (out of 5) primarily for damaging winds with any clusters of storms that develop. This set-up will continue through Friday and Saturday as the front wavers just to our north. Some of the data is lifting the front farther north into Friday, which would give the region a much needed break for a few hours. Much of the data is showing a 6″-8″ rainfall between now and Sunday with far Western Kentucky seeing the potential of 10″ plus of total rainfall. This would be historic and could potentially produce catastrophic flooding in those areas out west, but there is a legitimate concern for some higher impacts for areas of the Bluegrass Region. There should be a sharp gradient to the expected rainfall with Southern and Southeastern Kentucky seeing much less total rainfall, which would keep that area out of the higher flood threat. There is a Flood Watch for all of Central and Southern Kentucky all the way through Sunday morning given the consistent rain potential the next few days. If you live in a flood prone area, have a plan in place and know where to go if needed.

With the commonwealth staying south of the stalled boundary in the warmer sector the next few days, expected an on-going strong to severe storm threat daily through Saturday with any storms potentially producing mainly damaging winds. Keep in mind the expected clouds and rain could diminish the chances somewhat but the Storm Prediction Center does have much of the area in a Level 1-2 severe risk daily through Saturday until the front finally gets pushed out of the region by the end of the day on Sunday. The bottom line is you need to stay weather aware the next several days!

We’ll finally get a chance to dry out early next week as unseasonably cool air returns to the region. Afternoon highs will back off into the upper 40s to low-50s so it will definitely feel a touch on the cool side. More importantly we’ll catch a few dry days which will be much needed after this anticipated very wet and active period over the next several days. Stay with the ABC 36 Storm team for the latest updates.