Flood — Bourbon, Kentucky

2018-09-23 · near Brentsville, Bourbon, Kentucky

Event narrative

A female interning at Silver Springs Stud Farm was returning from lunch on Brentsville Road when she drove into water from a flooded stream over the roadway. The stream swept the vehicle into a deep pool off the road. Within moments, the top of the car was several feet below the surface of the water. The victim's body was recovered several hours later from the backseat of the vehicle.

Wider weather episode

On the afternoon of September 22nd, a flash flood watch was issued to cover southeast Indiana and areas in and around the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky.

By September 23rd, a cold front stretched west to east from western Tennessee to far

east-central Kentucky on through eastern Kentucky. The front was tilted northward with the 700 mb level of the front just north of the Ohio River. Low level northward flow carried moisture and overran the front producing widespread stratiform rain showers. The pattern was in response to the area sitting under the right entrance region of an upper level jet.

The quasi-stationary front produced showers with high rainfall rates and slow movement to the east into the Bluegrass and northeastern Kentucky. The ground east of Interstate 65 and in counties along the Ohio River was already saturated from previous rainfall. The high rainfall rates and slow system movement caused widespread flash flooding and areal flooding through southern Indiana and the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky.

On September 25th ahead of an advancing cold front, a saturated air mass was in place with precipitable water values near two inches. With this air mass and shear ahead of the cold front, convective showers formed over southern Indiana and advanced east along Interstate 65 causing flooding issues in the system's path.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.2400, -84.3100)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 783701. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.