Thunderstorm Wind — Nelson, Kentucky

2023-07-24 · near New Haven, Nelson, Kentucky

Event narrative

Multiple trees were blown down by strong winds near New Haven. About 600 customers were without power in the area.

Wider weather episode

While the synoptic scale pattern on July 24th and 25th, 2023 had a similar appearance to earlier events in the month with large scale troughing across the Ohio Valley, the flow aloft was generally weaker, which limited the overall severe potential to more of a typical summertime event. On the other hand, instability values were quite impressive, with 2500-3500 J/kg of mixed-layer CAPE developing across central Kentucky and southern Indiana during the afternoon hours on July 24th. Convection initiated in the vicinity of a weak surface frontal boundary across southwestern Indiana and southern Illinois during the early afternoon hours, with storms moving off to the east and southeast along with the background flow aloft. The parameter space was generally favorable for ordinary cell thunderstorms, with a few multicell clusters also developing along and ahead of the front. The primary observed severe hazard was damaging straight-line winds, as between 1000-1400 J/kg of downdraft CAPE was observed on mesoanalysis data. Additionally, a couple instances of severe hail were also observed in southern Indiana, where significant hail parameter values were slightly higher (around or above 1). Storms gradually subsided after sunset on July 24th, with conditions remaining quiet through the morning and early afternoon hours on July 25th. While slightly drier air moved into southern Indiana and north central Kentucky and limited thunderstorm potential on July 25th, a few strong to severe storms developed across southern and southwestern Kentucky during the afternoon and evening hours. One of these storms was strong enough to produce severe hail near Burkesville in Cumberland County, Kentucky.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.6600, -85.5900)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1128913. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.