John Gordon with the Louisville National Weather Service had a live briefing with Kentuckiana media, including WSLM and WRLW, about the strong possibility of tornadoes and severe storms overnight.
“The main threat is overnight in Southern Indiana and Northcentral Kentucky. I really believe this is going to be a tornadic situation,” said Gordon. “We’re coming up on the leap year of the tornadoes of 2012…very similar to the January 2012 event. This is a serious situation.”
“This is a pretty significant event,” said Gordon. “There will be three waves. The first one is coming to an end.”
Thunderstorms that passed through today brought flash flood warnings throughout the area.
Gordon said the second wave will come overnight. There could be a couple of isolated wind and hail events this afternoon.”
There is a moderate risk – from Louisville to Southern Indiana from 10p to 4p.
“There is a 15 percent risk of overnight tornadoes,” said Gordon. “I consider a dangerous risk of tornadic activity tonight. The wind shear is very, very strong. There is a lot of moisture and instability that we didn’t have on last Friday.”
Overall confidence is very high, said Gordon. “There will be clusters of storms. Louisville Metro may have storms from 1a-6a. Prime Time. Southern Indiana — Jasper, Paoli, Salem…all the way back to Beaver Dam. All facets of severe weather — hail, damaging winds and tornadoes. And flooding.”
Definitely will be severe weather across the Ohio and Mississippi Valley tonight.
Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms will be possible Tuesday afternoon, with the main threats being gusty winds and small hail.
The thunderstorm activity will move out of the region by late afternoon.
Another round of more significant thunderstorms are expected to move into the region tonight and last through Wednesday morning.
The potential for night time tornadoes has increased across southern IN and north central KY.
“Be sure to have a way to get warnings overnight,” Gordon warned. “In addition, large hail and damaging winds will are expected with these storms.”
Becky White, Salem Media owner, said all of her stations were equipped with FCC compliant EAS units.
“These units will sound off on the radio and WRLW TV when there are watches and warnings,” said White.
