Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Valley Station - PRP Storm Story July 26-27 2014

A strong line of storms plowed into the southwest part of Jefferson County early Saturday night and produced one of the most vivid displays of lightning that I have witnessed in a few years. In addition, I estimated wind gusts of at least 50 mph at my location in Valley Station, about 15 minutes southwest of Louisville International airport.

At 9:00 pm, I was tracking a line of strong to severe thunderstorms moving toward the Leavenworth area of Indiana. When nautical twilight had elapsed, I could see some hints of lightning to my west and northwest.

Following the storm using RADAR and a real-time lightning tracker, the southwest-northeast oriented line appeared to be strongest at the southwest end. Forecasting the track at that time would place the strongest part over Breckinridge, Meade, and Hardin counties, just missing the adjacent part of southwest Jefferson County.

However, during the next 30 minutes, cloud to ground lightning strikes began increasing rapidly just to my west in Harrison County, Indiana and to my southwest in Meade County, Kentucky. By this time, my little girl was enthralled by the light show as the real-time lightning tracker was crackling on my computer screen at the same time.

Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for western Jefferson County along with a handful of adjacent counties until 10:15 pm. Well, I was the easternmost extent of the warned area and by 10:00, just a lot of lightning and no wind to speak of.

Then, another warning was issued for the southern part of Jefferson County. By 10:10, the down draft base was being illuminated by the lightning off to my northwest. I knew then that the winds and rain would be increasing shortly.

I decided to unplug my electronic gadgets because the lightning was very intense. Within a few minutes, the winds began increasing and then the rain began falling heavily.

Peak wind gusts were sustained by about 10:20. The weight of the water collecting on the leaves of tree branches began taking a toll as winds gusted to at least 50 mph twice during a one-minute span.

Finally, I decided to get inside and suggested that we may end up losing power, not so much from the wind but from the lightning, because we had not lost power up until that time. Then, right on cue, the lights blinked, blinked again, tried valiantly to stay on, and then darkness. Well, the power went out. As far as darkness, I don't think so. The lightning was my candle to the candles and push lights, then we just waited out the storm.

The way the lights had flickered, I figured a small limb must have landed on a wire somewhere in the neighborhood and just shorted the transformer. I did not recall hearing any blown transformers, though.

By 10:45, my mother's neighbor calls the house (they live about 2 miles southwest of me). We have no power, so our 900 MHz cordless does not ring. However, the phone in the bedroom was emitting a series of chirps. She informs me that they actually had power but the phone lines in the neighborhood were out.

She informs me that AT&T would be out in their neighborhood the next day. I thanked her for calling. Of course, my mother rarely leaves her cell phone on. That's why nobody could get a hold of them. Since my grandmother who lives with them has a serious medical condition, a phone, or access to a phone is a necessity.

Getting out of the house to drive over there was interesting. Traffic light was blinking red. Four-way stop. I was surprised by the number of people out and about at this time of night. But, everyone did fine.

Actually, many people had power and then again, many people did not. At a stop sign, I looked to my right and there were no porch lights on, just complete darkness. Yet, on the left, people had power on the one side of the street.

Uh oh. Rounding the curve, one of those mobile and adjustable basketball goals was blocking the street. If people would just put sand or gravel inside the base of those things, it could actually withstand the strong winds. I hoisted it upright, thinking that these little patio pavers, three of them, one already broken, was not going to keep this thing standing erect if we get much more wind later.

There were a smattering of twigs and small branches laying in the road, nothing serious. After I informed my father about me losing power, we noticed his neighbors across the street had no power either.

During a weather update, he said at least 11,000 LG&E customers were without power. He was surprised that they had power. Since the whole neighborhood has underground utilities, I was surprised they had lost power.

The following morning, I awoke to more storms pounding the area. An impressive amount of lightning at about 4:30 kept me up for the rest of the day. Despite the amount of lightning at that time, I only saw just a little bit of rain from those cells, while just to my south, they must have been hit hard because the lightning stayed over those areas. I learned later that some areas just to my south had received over 1" in about an hour from storms that kept training over their locations.

However, by 6:30, I got mine. The lightning was not as intense. But another round of very heavy rain moved into the area and more than doubled the amount of rain I had received from the storm earlier that night.

Later that morning, I drove to get batteries for the weather radio and gas for the generator. Some traffic lights were completely out, no blinking red, just nothing. I was appalled that drivers failed to treat the intersections as 4-way stops. Technically, you are required to treat those instances as 4-way stops, even if the lights are not blinking red. But, safety rules the roost. So, I drove defensively, anticipating their unmannerly, perhaps ignorant views of this technicality.

Driving around the various communities during the next few hours, I noticed several broken tree limbs. In fact, at one time, one road was blocked due to a falling limb. And those beautifully shaped Bradford Pear trees really took a beating. I saw at least 7 trees that had a portion of its top ripped out, thereby making the entire tree useless to look at anymore.

Overall, it was an impressive series of storms. As a storm spotter, I was unable to report anything because technically, I did not have winds that reached severe criteria. But, I should have alerted the NWS office of the high winds and power outages. Furthermore, I seemed to stress the importance of being prepared for a severe weather episode. And I was totally unprepared even though I knew that a line of strong storms was bearing down on the area. No fresh batteries in the weather radio, no candles or push lights. Also, when my gutters were clogged with debris from earlier storms, I failed to climb my ladder to the roof and clean those downspouts when there was a brief lull. Oh well.

MS


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