Storms Still Possible, Heat Likely

06:45pm
Lexington getting pounded with heavy rain and lots of lightning. Fayette county outages increasing. Oldham county just north of Prospect with intense storm knocking out power to 3,200 customers.
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06:09pm
Franklin county power outage up to 371...Fayette county next.
Storm appeared to be bowing out, but could also be a sign of weakening, hopefully. This thing was a monster.
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05:45pm
Power outages are now increasing in parts of Franklin and Owen counties. Could be from wind but most likely the lightning. See LGE/KU power outage map in the Miks Piks section of the blog.
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05:35pm
The small cell is producing lightning strokes of nearly 30 per minute nearing Frankfort and Georgetown. It is slowly moving and is producing flooding rains.
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04:55pm
Speaking of Frankfort, strong storm just north...lightning strikes really ramping up now. Wouldn't be surprised by power outages due from lightning strikes. This storm is really putting out the lightning.
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03:45pm
Lightning tracker shows lightning count within 180 miles of Frankfort ticking down for the moment. As of this writing, the 3:30 lightning strokes per minute stood at 30.9. Overnight, it peaked around 200 strokes per minute. The nice thing about this feature is one can adjust the distance from, in this case it's Frankfort, within a few miles. Most of the current lightning strikes is occurring in West Virginia.

http://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/america/index.php?bo_page=statistics&bo_station_id=33&bo_region=dist300&lang=en

Within 120 miles of Frankfort...
http://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/america/index.php?bo_page=statistics&bo_station_id=33&bo_region=dist200&lang=en


Watch the lightning count ramp up this evening....
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03:20pm UPDATE
Dry conditions continue to exist. Mesoscale analysis shows rampant instability across the region. The only thing keeping a lid on things is the weak cap that should break down later this afternoon. Looking at vis sat, partial clearing may help focus potential development of storms along a line from Cincinnati to Terre Haute and drop southeast. Storms may form a broken line, so not everyone will get wet. Gusty winds and very heavy rainfall can be expected with the more rambunctious cells.
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PWat or Precipitable Water values are running at 1.8 to 1.9 across north-central Kentucky and southern Indiana at 11:00am this morning.

Dewpoint readings are in the upper 60's and low to mid 70's.

Weak capping is in place across parts of the region. Convection is dying off to the north and northwest of the area. Cloud debris though has streamed into the area limiting instability at this time.

Therefore, I'm expecting dry conditions for several hours today. But convection is sure to fire up and break through the weak cap and produce heavy rainfall for many of us today. Even gusty winds along with dangerous lightning (uh oh Friday Night Football attenders) are possible. Actual pinpointing of that is difficult to do. However, I would place it at greater than the 20 percent coverage area by the NWS.

Heat is building into the area. NWS is expecting heat indices to approach and exceed 100 degrees at times this weekend.

I'll follow the action this afternoon but expect convection to really get going after 3pm.

MS