I missed today's severe storms, which were well forecast by the SPC, because I was spending my day at King's Island in Cincinnati. It was hotter than blazes, the sun was out, and the air was chuck full of moisture, yet no storms materialized for the Cincinnati area. Louisville seems to be a storm magnet lately!
I heard about the Severe Thunderstorm Warning that was issued and came home to see nearly a quarter of an inch of rain recorded on our digital rain gauge. That must have been quite a downpour!
We're not out of the woods yet it looks like for tonight. An impressive looking line of storms (MCS) is taking shape north of St. Louis... possibly becoming a derecho later tonight if it isn't already. A derecho is a large, bowing line of storms with sustained winds of near 60 mph or higher. The SPC did a good job today by issuing a MODERATE risk just to our north and west. We'll see if that area needs extentions though. Our local NWS office is estimating a 2am arrival time for this in Louisville, and I'm in agreement with this.
Derechos are nasty, folks. We had one in 2004 that knocked out power to nearly 200,000 LG&E customers in the metro. We didn't get power back at my house for nearly 5 days. Granted, this storm had sustained winds of over 75 mph, but the point of the story is that large scale bowing events like this cause major problems. I don't really think we'll see real widespread severe weather tonight due to the deterioration of these storms during the night, but nevertheless there is a good chance we could have some problems. We'll see if this thing is going to live long enough to pack a punch down here. Our NWS office is putting out the call to turn on your weather alert radios tonight, so I think I know their what their feeling is about this thing. I'd heed that call if I were you.
This could be a rough night if this storm structure stays intact.
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