weather Category 3 Enhanced Risk Area for parts of Kentucky (Updated)

Parts of extreme northwestern Kentucky are now in a Category 3 Enhanced Risk Area for possible strong to severe storms later today. A category 2 Slight Risk Area has been issued for parts of Kentucky mainly west of I-65.

The greatest potential for severe weather today will be with thunderstorm complexes moving across the lower Missouri and mid-Mississippi Valley regions, into portions of the Ohio Valley later this afternoon with the damaging wind as the main threat.

The HRRR Ohio Valley Radar is from 5 pm EDT to 1 am EDT Saturday morning.

I will be monitoring this situation throughout the day and post updates whenever possible.

All of Kentucky west of I-65 is now in a category 3 Enhanced Risk Area for strong to severe storms for today. A category 2 Slight Risk Area is east of I-65 to around I-75. A category 1 Marginal Risk Area is mainly east of I-75.

A long-lived mesoscale convective system (MCS) us tracking across eastern Missouri into western Illinois. This activity has resulted in several reports of damaging winds, and will likely persist through the afternoon as it moves into portions of Indiana and northern Kentucky. The air will become progressively less unstable farther east so it is unclear how far up the Ohio Valley the damaging wind threat will persist. But due to the uncertainties of significant mesoscale organization of the system is the reason the Slight and Marginal Risk areas have expanded into central and eastern Kentucky.

A second line is over western Missouri is immediately following the first, and has also produced several reports of wind damage. This line appears to be taking a slightly more southerly trajectory and is tapping a very moist and very unstable air mass. It also appears that this second line will become more dominant and eventually move into Kentucky. This the reason that all of western Kentucky is in a category 3 Enhanced Risk Area.