5/5 - 10:50pm - New feature coming down the tubes...

Sorry for the forecast video problems (small video size), Google Video never acts quite right.

Anyway, the Derby was not a washout like some had feared (including myself), so the Queen of England had a nice visit to the Downs. I'm sure Street Sense liked it too. For the next few days we will be dry and warm, so nothing much to talk about locally.

In Kansas there was a town that was 95% destroyed by an EF-4 to EF-5 tornado today. That is just unbelievable. I don't think I've seen any damage that bad before. The town has 1,500 people and there are at least 8 fatalities. I just can't imagine a whole town being wiped off the map like that...

On a brighter note, I have a new feature I am implementing TODAY!!! If you look to the right of the blog here, you will see a "Ryan Weather LIVE Severe Weather Coverage" box with a Ustream player. This a new service that I am experimenting with that will allow me to broadcast live video from my computer and show radar images and such during a severe weather outbreak. Since this is just a practice/test feature, don't rely on it for official alerts. Also, I won't be home sometimes during events so I won't be able to cover every event. It's not quite ready for prime time yet, so its home will be on the blog for a while. Here's the logo for it:

5/5 - 1pm - New Forecast Video

Here's a new forecast video...

5/3 - 8:30pm - It was almost cold today!

Take a step outside... It's 63 degrees! It really didn't get much higher than that today. To me, it was almost cold today because we've been spoiled by 80 degree weather.

Now we get to the sensitive information...
Derby looks OKAY as of now. I try to think that it will only be scattered showers (heavy ones due to heating in the afternoon), but the NAM-WRF keeps looking at me and laughs. I don't know how widespread it will be, but I hope its not too bad...

More later!

5/1 - 7:30pm - Wet week shaping up

Well, we've got a cold front that just won't go away. Right now, its sitting over Indiana and is deciding whether or not it wants to move south. Indications now look as if Thursday is the day for it to make its move. If we can get this thing out of here on Friday, it'll be dry for Derby. Unfortunately I think we'll have to deal with some limited shower activity for Derby, but only a little.

After that, we dry out and warm back up into the 80's. In my opinion, I think we will shoot for 90 mid to late next week based on a nice ridge that will be fairly dry in the midweek and allow southwest winds and sunlight to really push in here. Interestingly, there is not a drop of severe weather in here for the forecast period. It just seems that we can't get any unstable/moist air masses to shift this way.

If you believe in the principle of elasticity (rubber band effect), then after our bout of dry and hot weather will be cool and unstable weather. Since I'm not entirely on that bandwagon, I'm just going to stick with the hot and dry forecast until the GFS shows me a credible pattern change.

4/26 - 7:45pm - Cool, then HOT!

Tomorrow's high is going to be in the low 60's. Then we turn on the heat for the rest of the weekend and next week. We're talking upper 70's to possibly mid 80's by next week!

Derby still looks good temperature wise, but the latest GFS runs have been hinting to some rain or thunderstorms in the area. As I've said before, this will change a million times before the real thing.

As for today, it's been quite active. We had some spotty little severe cells come through the area with some small hail and heavy rain. There was also a Tornado Watch issued, but that threat quickly shifted east once it was issued. Our next chance for storms will be next week during the heat. These will be of the spring-like popcorn variety...

4/24 - 5pm - Rough Weather Tonight

I just took a glance at the radar and spotted some nasty little cells starting to fire up across western Kentucky. These are not of the super cell nature as of yet, but are well on their way to achieving that status. These are forming an impromptu line of cells that is headed ENE towards Louisville. No tornado out watch right now, but the SPC said there could be one soon.

I keep you posted if anything develops.

4/23 - 4pm - Rain on the Way!

We'll be increasing our chances for rain this week goes on. Aside from the rain, we are under a slight risk for severe storms on Wednesday! We are just inside the area affected so we'll have to watch and see if that threat increases.

It looks like temperatures will hover in the mid 70's for most of the week. We will dip into the upper 60's for a couple days in the middle of this week, but we should recover nicely for this weekend. Right now, the Derby looks very warm. I'm sorry to say that we may have a couple of rain showers (light!) around the area though. This will probably change a million times before the day of the Derby though...