Thunderstorm Wind — Jackson, Kentucky

2024-07-31 · near Waneta, Jackson, Kentucky

Event narrative

A tree was reported down near the 1800 block of US-421 North, near the community of McKee.

Wider weather episode

SPC had much of the state, including easter KY in a slight risk for severe thunderstorms for the day Wednesday July 31. According to SPC: Similar to yesterday, a seasonally strong belt of northwesterly flow aloft will persist today from the lower Ohio Valley to the southern Appalachians and coastal Southeast. Much of this will reside atop a moist and very unstable air mass, especially across parts of the lower Ohio Valley to Cumberland Plateau, where upwards of 3000-4000 J/kg MLCAPE may develop by peak heating outside of any MCS-related impacts. This general scenario will likely support several organized severe-producing storms clusters/MCSs through the evening across these regions. Somewhat higher severe probabilities (Enhanced category) may be warranted in subsequent outlooks for parts of these region.

For one, an MCS ongoing across central Illinois this morning may potentially persist southeastward within this increasingly unstable environment, possibly impacting areas such as southern Indiana, southern Ohio and parts of Kentucky/Tennessee with a heightened wind damage potential. Aided by differential heating, scattered storms should also increase across the southern Appalachians vicinity this afternoon, with some organization into clusters possible given the aforementioned relative strength of winds aloft, with wind damage possible.

Sure enough, a line of storms developed around 10am EDT in east-central and KY and moved eastward over the next few hours. By the time it reached Bell County it produced heavy rain that led to flash flooding. The MCS that originated across Illinois continued to push southeast into the region, along with other developing storms. This lead to multiple warnings across the region during the afternoon and early evening hours, and multiple storms that produced damaging thunderstorm winds.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.4517, -84.0190)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1204714. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.