Weather can be a unifying thing. There were about 60,000 or so of us getting wet, being loud and celebrating one of the best performances of a UK football team in a very long time. It was a wonderful experience, and one that hopefully is repeated many more times this fall. ( I have witnesses that a 9 or 10 win team was predicted by your friendly neighborhood weather guy this past summer) There was a point after one of the Bennie Snell touchdowns that the concrete structure that is Kroger Field was actually shaking. I’m glad my daughter is getting to experience this in her senior year.
Now we mentioned weather up top (this is a weather blog after all), but unfortunately the rain that started innocently enough Saturday became tragic Sunday. The heavy rain that fell in areas north of I-64 led to a death as a young woman drove on a flooded road in Bourbon County and the car was swept away. We’ve talked about it time and again how little water it actually takes to turn a situation dangerous. Here’s a terrific graphic created by the National Weather Service that really illustrates it.
Literally knee deep water can sweep a car away. Please…please…please never drive across a flooded road.
The rainfall numbers are impressive. The Kentucky Mesonet is THE resource for weather stats in the Commonwealth. A half foot of rain was measured in Nicholas County outside of Carlisle since Saturday. Franklin County (south of Frankfort) was right behind at more than 5 1/2 inches. A weather observer in Georgetown (that’s you Ron!) picked up over 6″ of rain. The thing is, we’re not done. The Flash Flood Watch for our area (all except the far southeast corner) continues into Wednesday. We could easily pick up another 1 to 3 inches and in a lot of places there just is no place to put it.
In addition, as a cold front begins to approach late Tuesday a strong or severe storm becomes at least a possibility. It’s for that reason our StormTracker Threat Index is a 1. Neither the flooding or severe weather should be widespread, but it’s something we’ll continue to track.
The September rainfall has been impressive and historic in Lexington, and other communities as well. After Monday’s inch and a quarter our monthly total now stands at 9.75″ We moved into second place in Lexington’s all time rainfall list for September rain with a VERY legitimate shot at making it number 1…and it would be the 2nd wettest month we’ve recorded this year (February). It would also be our second double digit rainfall month. Finally, after the 1″ plus today that makes 5 times this month we’ve had more than an inch of rain in a day. For historical perspective this has obliterated an 85 year old record of 3 such days from 1933!
We have more rain coming. We’re already way above normal for the year and already in the top 25 for a whole year with 3 months to go. It certainly makes our bluegrass green!
Stay aware Tuesday and Tuesday night…we’ll be here tracking.
All the best
Bill
