Thunderstorm Wind — Rowan, Kentucky

2024-04-02 · near Sharkey, Rowan, Kentucky

Event narrative

A house on the west side of Shawnee Drive, near the intersection with KY-158, sustained considerable damage when strong easterly winds struck the chimney on the southwest side. The chimney collapsed into the roof structure, losing it's stone faade. In addition, a metal garage (located on the north side of the house) sustained damage to the east facing large garage door. The garage door had been removed at time of survey. Meanwhile, the house next door (north of above-mentioned house/west side of the street) received siding damage to the south-facing side of the house, and had it's AC unit flipped over on the same side. The house across the street also sustained a broken window, and missing shingles/flashing.

Wider weather episode

Eastern Kentucky's first substantial severe weather day of 2024 occurred on April 2nd, as a rapidly intensifying low pressure system tracked just northwest of the area. The first round of severe weather occurred between 9 AM and 12 PM as a line of severe thunderstorms raced eastward and impacted many locations near and north of the Mountain Parkway. Along this line, several surges and pockets of circulation developed over the Bluegrass. Bath County suffered the brunt of the line, with many instances of straight line wind damage, though substantial damage was also observed in Fleming and Rowan counties. Pockets of damage were also noted in most other counties along and north of the Parkway. An NWS storm survey estimated that winds reached 70 to 90 knots in three northwest to southeast-oriented swaths across Bath County. A couple of brief spin-up tornadoes also appear to have occurred within 2 of the swaths near the communities of Sharpsburg and Reynoldsville.

Once the late morning thunderstorm activity weakened, a messy mixture of showers and a few thunderstorms lifted across eastern Kentucky through the afternoon. Severe weather was not observed again until early evening when a couple of supercell thunderstorms developed over central/eastern Tennessee and moved into southeast Kentucky. The first storm, tracking northeast just east of Pine Mountain, produced a swath of hail up to half dollar size, though much of it likely fell in remote and rugged terrain. A second supercell thunderstorm moved northeast across the Cumberland River basin and eventually weakened over the basin of the South Fork Kentucky River. This storm produced pockets of wind damage, the most severe of which was observed in northeast Whitley County where many trees, multiple structures and an RV park suffered significant damage. An NWS storm survey found damage consistent with winds gusts of 80 to 90 mph in this area about 7 miles southwest of Corbin. Additional details on this straight line wind event in Whitley County and also the straight line wind/tornado event in the Bluegrass are available here and here, respectively.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.2425, -83.5382)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1173864. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.