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Here at WxOrNotBG, we have begun to implement a new post every Sunday evening previewing the week ahead. In light of that, I am going to begin posting a review of the previous week each Saturday night, highlighting the major events that occurred, etc. So, with that being said, here is your *cue awesome music* WxOrNotBG Week in review for July 12th through the 18th.
This past week was incredibly weird. It definitely doesn’t stack up to the wildest week ever back in February, but this week was definitely up there.
The week started off with big forecasting days in Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday didn’t really have a ton going for it, except for an early morning MCS that clipped our eastern region with some outflow induced storm, but overall, it was warm and muggy.
The biggest thing on Sunday was that the SPC had issued a moderate risk for several counties in the region.
This had meteorologists across the region scrambling, running, getting excited, nervous and everything else we feel (see the emotions mets feel during and preceding sig. weather events here and here) as the set up was awesome.
We had northwesterly flow, high temps, high dewpoints and lots of shear (unusual for this time of year), and all of that tends to set us up for some pretty substantial severe weather. So, we were all freaking out.
Monday gets here, and everything looks good. Many models are showing not one, but two significant waves of severe storms. This was giving emergency managers fits, and forcing mets to work major overtime.
I’m beat. 14hrs on duty. Time for bed. Keep Johnson County in your thoughts and prayers. #kywx
— Mark J. ⚡️ (@MJ33Wx) July 14, 2015
Wind damage was a huge threat, especially with the saturated grounds across the region, but the bigger issue was gonna end up being flooding. The first wave of storms took a path from southern Wisconsin all the way through central and eastern KY, producing a substantial path of damaging winds and incredibly heavy rainfall (more on that in a sec). This left our area dry….and really wondering what was gonna happen. Those storms left behind a temperature, dewpoint and instability gradient across the region that didn’t really fire off storms like it could have across the region. BUT. There was the overnight batch yet to come! Haha! That would be the one!
Here we go with the beginning of the second round https://t.co/4BsPmBUNiR — Pierce Larkin (@pierce_larkin) July 13, 2015
A Tornado Watch will soon be issued to our NW. Keeping a close eye on the evolution of this system into the night. pic.twitter.com/qKOaphiF7p
— Landon Hampton (@WxOrNotBG) July 14, 2015
……*crickets*
So, about those…”storms.”
— Landon Hampton (@WxOrNotBG) July 14, 2015
Nothing happened. The storms that formed overnight, first of all, couldn’t get organized to save their own lives. This was due, in large part, to a cap over the lower atmosphere. This is a region of warmer air that inhibits air beneath it from rising into the unstable portion of the atmospheric column. Well……..
The storms weren’t able to tap into the wind shear that was amply available to organize it, and thus, our storms were virtually non-existent. They rode the eastern side of the instability bubble and walloped eastern KY with rainfall. In all seriousness, the eastern portion of the state was devastated early in the week by heavy rainfall and flooding. With incredibly high dewpoints, the atmosphere was spitting out rainfall rates as high as 7″ per hour in some counties, leading to incredibly devastating flash flooding.
Keep those folks in your thoughts in prayers, as they faced similar issues the following day. Over here, however, we were bone dry. Which is much better than having too much rain.
Post-Tuesday, this week got really quiet. So quiet that I fished for 8.5 hours onWednesday in the incredible weather we had. The cold front finally passed through the area and gave us amazing conditions to work with.
However, Wednesday would prove to be the nicest day in a long time as the ridge that had been dominating the central part of the nation retrograded eastward and began to dominate our weather conditions. This made things hot, muggy and just plain awful.
From Thursday through today, it has just been really hot in and around the region, with little relief from clouds or rain. Oh well, I guess we’ll just wait for the next front to come through.
So what is next week lookin’ like? Well, I’ll have that tomorrow night. For now, just enjoy what craziness last week brought upon us.