MikJournal Monday 06/17/2019...Precipathon II

Welcome to another Monday edition of my Journal. It's starting out on a soggy note. Then again, what else is new?

We are now in the midst of another long-duration rain event, affectionately I call Precipathon part 2, like a marathon rain event, similar to one we had earlier this month.

Locations like Louisville and Covington/Cincinnati could be looking at top ten June Precipitation records before this week is over.

I'll be doing my best to update annual totals on my blog. But, please understand, it's a very 'fluid' situation. Yeah, I know. Weather geeks like myself just can't resist.

Seriously, though, the rainfall totals in some areas are becoming dangerous. Reports of water rescues over the weekend and a report of a landslide in Powell county destroying a home are just a few of the issues confronting residents and drivers.

While it will not rain the entire time, our region is placed in the proverbial bull's eye for episodic bouts of heavy rain. The convective nature of the storms this week could dump a lot of rain over one location while another location not too far away sees very little.

NWS Louisville has already put out numbers of an additional 2 - 4" for the week ahead. Again, that's on top of the 1 to nearly 4" that has already fallen over the past couple of days.

Your geography bee of the week...

Although Interstate 90 is the longest interstate in the United States at just over 3,000 miles, the longest road in the United States is Route 20, at over 3,300 miles, the scenic route if you will, which runs roughly parallel to the I-90 and includes Boston MA at one end to Newport OR at the other.


(photo HistoricUS20)

Have a nice week everyone. Stay safe.

MS

MikJournal Monday 06/10/2019...Impressive Rain Totals

Good Monday to you. Hopefully, it's a bit drier where you are today. Impressive rain totals over the last 5 days or so.

I recorded 3.92" during this time. Thankfully, the lush green vegetation surrounding my house now helped to capture and absorb the liquid before anything could invade my basement.

Other locations saw over 6.5" for the same time period, such as Barren county Mesonet near  Glasgow. Casey county Mesonet also recorded over 6" for the event. Two to four inches were quite common across several areas of central and east Kentucky. At times, the rainfall was so intense, flash flooding occurred in not less than a few locations.

Hopefully, we can dry things out, get some much needed yard work done, and then do it all over again, this time not as much rainfall...hopefully.

Your geography bee for the week is...Sawyer KY in McCreary county, just north of Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, and Sault Saint Marie MI share a very close approximation in terms of longitude coordinates (the west to east coordinates). Of course, the latitude coordinates, or north-south coordinates are much different, approximately 9.5 degrees difference. When I would chase storms, I often used the Great Circle Formula to determine how far away storms were versus how much time would be needed to drive and intercept (storms don't use the highway most of the time). Using the formula, one can calculate the distance between the two locations(as the crow flies, not actual driving miles)....

Converting the latitude and longitude coordinates from degrees to radians for the two locations(E2 and E5 radians) and (F2 and F5 radians) respectively and using this sample formula from my Excel spreadsheet, here is the distance...

=6367*ACOS((SIN(E2)*SIN(E5))+(COS(E2)*COS(E5))*(COS(F2-F5)))/1.609
Distance is 663 miles

from		lat	long	lat(rad)e2	long(rad)f2
ssm		46.4977	-84.3476	0.811538	-1.4721433
to		lat	long	lat(rad)e5	long(rad)f5
sawyer		36.9001	-84.3516	0.6440282	-1.4722131
662.8555		miles

Have a good week.
MS

MikJournal Monday 06/03/2019...Wet Threat

Hey, hey! Welcome back to an overdue Monday edition of my journal. Wow, time flies. It's already meteorological summer. School is just about out for the kiddos here in Jefferson County. The garden is in full swing. Lots of pepper plants this year, including habanero and ghost pepper along with a chili pepper and a couple of Marconi pepper plants, a few sweet bell pepper and Big Bertha bell plants. And of course, tomato plants, including one I am experimenting with in a bale of straw. I have never tried it before and thought I'd give it a go. Looking forward to fried green tomatoes and some hot salsa later this summer.

In case you missed it, have a look at this....
here

That's right, pre-drought conditions. Who'd ever thought we would be talking about abnormally dry weather after such a wet winter? But, there you have it. Because by this time next week, that abnormally dry condition will be gone.
We have an abundance of moisture poised to invade our region. In fact, some locations could see rain totals exceeding 4" by this time next Monday. Stay tuned. In addition, convective activity looks to be strong to severe at times for many of us. We could even have multiple rounds of severe weather. Again, stay tuned to your favorite media source for the most up-to-date information.

I'm a big geography buff, so here is a couple of interesting statistics you might enjoy. The state of Delaware has just 3 counties, making this state the one with the least amount of counties, whereas Texas tops the list with an astounding 254 counties, equal to the combined counts of the commonwealths of Virginia(134) and Kentucky(120) who are ranked 3rd and 4th highest respectively.

Have a good week. And keep alert to those possible hazards this week.

MS