6/15 - 11:15am - Heavy Rain and Severe Weather

A line of heavy rain and lightning moved through the Louisville area this morning and another short burst or two of that could come through again as we approach the noon hour. None of this has been or is expected to be severe, but there's quite a bit of cloud-to-ground lightning in these storms.


The clouds associated with these storms moving through this morning will help to limit instability for severe storm development this afternoon in Louisville and Northern Kentucky. Storms will likely still form this afternoon and evening and move through much of the Lower Ohio Valley and Tennessee, but Southern Indiana, Louisville, and Lexington will probably miss a good chunk of the severe weather from these storms. Further south near Bowling Green, Nashville and points eastward will see a better risk for severe weather this afternoon as they already have some sunlight hitting the ground to build instability.


The SPC has issued a Slight Risk of severe storms for much of Kentucky, Tennessee, parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia today. With that entails a 5% risk for tornadoes in South Central Kentucky and Middle and East Tennessee.

6/13 - 10pm - Back from Bonnaroo, Storms This Week?

I'm back from a very hot (temperature and music-wise) weekend at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, TN. It only rained briefly on Saturday evening, but the rest of the event was hot and dry. The heat created a couple of notable dust devils at the festival, one of which shook up the crowd for a few seconds as it ripped through one of the main arteries of the event area. It picked up nothing more than small debris (paper, cardboard, etc) but it was very well-formed and unfortunately didn't last long enough to get pictures. Even though the air quality deteriorated greatly throughout the weekend as the dusty air thickened, the festival was fantastic and the weather cooperated fairly well given the time of year.

Storms are in the forecast for Kentucky and Tennessee this week as an area of low pressure moves through the Plains and Midwest. An accompanying cold front will help to provide lift for severe thunderstorm development on Tuesday for much of Tennessee and Western Kentucky, with that threat shifting slightly eastward and northward to include the Louisville area on Wednesday. A warm front extending to the east of this low pressure area will serve as the northward extent of this severe weather threat on both days. On Wednesday it should be on or near the Ohio River, so areas south of that boundary (possibly Louisville) will have to watch out for damaging winds, hail, and maybe even an isolated tornado or two. My gut tells me this will be a linear/straight-line wind event on Wednesday for Louisville due to the west-northwest winds aloft coupled with east-southeast winds at the surface, but supercells certainly aren't out of the question in places that get a more westerly wind vector aloft. Also, temperatures aloft will likely be too cold to support much of an isolated supercell threat in Kentucky, so my thinking is that the tornado threat for this whole event will remain fairly low in the northern portion of the storm area. A supercell or two would be a little more likely in Tennessee, but still remains a small risk. In any case, the Storm Prediction Center has highlighted Slight Risk areas for severe weather on Tuesday and Wednesday (pictured left). The placement of the warm front on Wednesday will be a key factor in determining exactly where severe storms will form on Wednesday, so it's something to definitely keep an eye on!

6/8 - 8am - Bonnaroo!

The Bonnaroo Music Festival begins Thursday in Manchester, Tennessee and I'll be there! This year's lineup features Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, Primus, and many more world-class bands and performers. Going to Bonnaroo? I have the latest forecast! As usual it look likes this year's festival will be hot and humid, but even more so this year because a bit of ridging in the atmosphere will build up heat to above average levels. There will be daily rain chances from summertime pop-up thunderstorms that will form during the afternoon, so be ready to get wet. These storms will be slow movers, so there could be some mud issues at the festival site should one of these develop and sit over Manchester. Here's a detailed forecast:

Thursday:  91 / 69         Sunny           20% T-Storms
Friday:       92 / 67         Sunny           30% T-Storms
Saturday:   91 / 68     Mostly Sunny    20% T-Storms
Sunday:     91 / 69     Mostly Sunny    30% T-Storms

The good news is that this heat may give just a little bit next week as the ridge we're under right now across the Southeast begins to break-down and move off. I think most locations in Kentucky and Tennessee will at least get below 90 for highs next week. Daily heat-induced thunderstorm chances will stick around, which is normal for this time of year. Summer may still be a couple weeks away, but the summer weather pattern is already in place!

6/4 - 4:30pm EDT - Another Great Storm Chasing Season

I'm on the ground in Louisville having completed four weeks of storm chasing as a tour guide with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. This week (tour 5) was quite a long one as we traveled 3,287 miles across Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. We intercepted two good supercells on this tour near Valentine, Nebraska and again just northeast of Minot, North Dakota. While neither of these produced a tornado, they were very picturesque and produced some great sunset pictures. Check out the map below for our route (ignore the sudden jog to Montana... my iPad had a glitch while it was recording our location yesterday):


This season overall has been very good. I've seen three funnel clouds, a rapidly rotating wall cloud in Kansas, and was within a couple miles of two invisible rain-wrapped tornadoes in Oklahoma. One of those tornadoes was rated an EF5 near El Reno, Oklahoma and unfortunately caused a great deal of damage and a few fatalities. The other tornado crossed I-35 in Moore, Oklahoma about a mile in front of us and threw some small debris and power lines into the roadway. Had these tornadoes not been rain-wrapped, they would've been in plain sight right in front of us. We also ran into the Tornado Intercept Vehicle 2 (TIV 2) of Discovery Channel fame, the TornadoVideos.net Dominator 1 and 2 vehicles, and The Weather Channel's Great Tornado Hunt chase team quite a bit over the past four weeks.


I want to extend a special thank you to all the viewers of this blog and those who have been following me on Twitter and Facebook over the past month. Being able to share this storm chasing experience with you has been one of my goals over the past four seasons and this year was better than ever thanks to advancements in mobile communications technology. I plan to return to Tornado Alley next year for another round of storm chasing and I'll let you know when I'll be out there as soon as my schedule solidifies.

This blog will return to it's ordinary state tomorrow, where I'll be reporting on weather news, meteorology, and a few odds and ends in between as usual. My next expedition will take me to the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee next week, which I attend almost annually, so I'll be sure to post updates from that event on my Twitter and Facebook accounts!

6/3 - 11am CDT - Heading Back to Denver

Yesterday we chased a very picturesque supercell storm northeast of Minot, North Dakota. While it didn't produce a tornado, the cloud formations in the storm were spectacular alone. The first cell we tried to intercept drifted into Canada, but the cell in the picture below stayed just south of the border and we were able to take quite a few pictures as the sun set. The only bad thing about this storm was that it occurred over the flooded fields of North Dakota, so the mosquito swarm was out in force (yes, I'm itching all over this morning). It was very difficult to even hold still for three seconds to take a picture because the mosquitos began covering and biting exposed skin almost immediately after getting out of the van. Keep that in mind as you're viewing the photos below.








It was quite an experience yesterday since most of us haven't been that far north in the contiguous 48 states before. Our overnight stay in North Dakota means a long (700 mile +) trip to Denver, Colorado to day so that we can pick up our next tour group and say goodbye to our guests on tour 5. Sadly, this is also the end of the road for me this season. I'll be flying back to Louisville tomorrow afternoon so that I can spend some time with my family this summer. It's been a great run and I'll post a quick wrap-up of this week's chase and my whole trip here either later tonight or tomorrow.

6/2 - 10:45am CDT - South Dakota Today, Not Looking Very Promising

We saw a small supercell last night near Valentine, Nebraska with a very picturesque sunset behind it. Since there were no road networks in the area we had to stay a good distance away from it and unfortunately it didn't last long either. If it had developed a couple hours earlier it would've been a big storm!


I'm no fan of today's severe weather setup in South Dakota. The main thing this morning that throws up red flags is the cirrus cloud shield over much of the state. This isn't something that burns off during afternoon heating, but is rather persistent. This shield will act to limit instability this afternoon and could keep storms from firing until after dark or not at all. Dew points at the surface are a bit marginal this morning and it's not a sure thing that they'll recover this afternoon because of computer model issues lately. We won't get a true east wind for good low-level wind shear either, so that's another thing to throw in the bin of issues.


Nevertheless, we're going to drive up to south-central South Dakota (short drive) and wait there to see how things develop. Maybe Mother Nature will surprise us. The Storm Prediction Center has a Slight Risk area out for much of South Dakota, but that may be in jeopardy right now based on current conditions.

6/1 - 10am CDT - Moving South Today

We're ready for storms today after a long drive back south from Detroit Lakes, MN yesterday. We started the day in Oacoma, SD and are headed westward to catch a southern route near Murdo, SD. We expect to keep heading south through Nebraska until we see a good spot where winds and cloud formation become conducive for supercell development. That area could be as far south as Goodland, Kansas. West-southwest flow at 500 mb and moisture surging northward will create the instability needed for this afternoon, while east-southeast winds will contribute to the low-level shear necessary for rotating storms. The one issue we're dealing with this morning is cloud cover across much of Nebraska and portions of Kansas. It should burn off/move out in time for storm development, but if it doesn't we may have an "event failure" (AKA no storms). Check out the satellite image below and you'll see what I mean:


The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Slight Risk for severe weather this afternoon and tacked on a 5% tornado risk as well.


As we keep an eye to the sky this afternoon I'll be posting frequent updates on Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to follow me on those sites for the latest reports!