Thunderstorm Wind — Jackson, Kentucky

2023-07-02 · near Foxtown, Jackson, Kentucky

Event narrative

Several trees were blown down near 200 Moore (Ridge) Road in the Foxtown Community.

Wider weather episode

Within a largely zonal flow regime, a midlevel shortwave trough progressed eastward from the mid MS Valley to the OH Valley by the overnight of July 2nd. Accompanying this trough, a belt of 40-50 kt midlevel flow overspread areas along and south of the OH River, across KY/TN through this evening. Likewise, a weak surface cyclone in northern IL will moved eastward to OH during the evening and overnight, while a trailing cold front moved slowly southeastward. The cold front stalled just west of Kentucky, and zone of ascent preceding the midlevel trough supported scattered to numerous thunderstorms through the night, with the attendant threats of damaging winds and large hail.

In the wake of weakening morning convection across KY, boundary-layer dewpoints in the low-mid 70s spread northeastward from the Mid-South as surface heating in cloud breaks boosted MLCAPE into the 2500-3500 J/kg range with minimal convective inhibition. Thunderstorm development began by early-mid afternoon along and ahead of the front across KY/TN and vicinity, and storms subsequently spread east-northeastward through late evening/early night. The increasing mid-upper flow over the warm sector resulted in sufficiently long and relatively straight hodographs for supercells and organized clusters capable of producing damaging winds and large hail. An isolated tornado or two was not ruled out by SPC, primarily where storms interact with lingering convective outflow/locally backed near-surface winds.

Two lines of thunderstorms rolled through eastern Kentucky throughout the afternoon and evening, each one resulting in widespread wind damage.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.4998, -83.9914)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1121256. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.