Thursday, March 26th, 2009: 5:20pm

Severe risk dominates the forecast...

There is a slight risk of severe storms south of the river on Friday night. There will be a severe weather/tornado outbreak over the 45% area (below). Any severe weather in Kentucky Friday would include potentially damaging winds and hail.


However, the biggest issue with this forecast for the area will be on Saturday.

As you can see, there is a 30% chance of severe weather for Saturday (Day 3 Outlook). It is usually not good for a 30% to be out 2 days before the anticipated outbreak, because a forecast 2 days out displays a lack of confidence in forecast.

This from the SPC: ...WIDESPREAD SEVERE WEATHER POSSIBLE SATURDAY INTO SATURDAY NIGHT... A VERY BROAD AND STRONG LLJ ATTENDANT TO EJECTING UPPER WAVE WILL SERVE TO ENHANCE THE TRANSPORT OF AN INCREASING MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER NWD FROM THE GULF STATES INTO OH VALLEY AND FROM THE CAROLINAS INTO THE MID ATLANTIC STATES. THIS MOISTURE WILL COMBINE WITH THE SIGNIFICANT HEIGHT FALLS/DYNAMIC COOLING MENTIONED ABOVE TO SUPPORT AIR MASS DESTABILIZATION OVER A LARGE REGION E OF THE MS RIVER SATURDAY INTO SATURDAY NIGHT. TSTMS ARE EXPECTED TO BE ONGOING SATURDAY MORNING FROM THE TN VALLEY INTO CNTRL GULF STATES AHEAD OF COLD FRONT. THIS ACTIVITY WILL QUICKLY MOVE/DEVELOP NEWD ALONG SURFACE LOW TRACK INTO THE MID/UPPER OH VALLEY AND MORE EWD INTO THE ERN GULF STATES OVER THE COURSE OF THE DAY. THE COMBINATION OF THE VERY STRONG WIND FIELDS AND DYNAMIC FORCING FOR ASCENT WILL FAVOR MULTIPLE LINE SEGMENTS WITH EMBEDDED SUPERCELLS/BOWS CAPABLE OF POTENTIALLY WIDESPREAD DAMAGING WINDS...HAIL AND TORNADOES.

The exact track of the storm, as well as whether we see destabalization after rains tomorrow night, will determine if we get severe weather Saturday. This is a potential storm. I have seen what storms in the past have done in this situation, but will wait till tomorrow to make a judgment call...

Besides this, we could see 1-1.5" of rain over this weekend's weather...stay tuned...

Alex C.