One of the constant questions I have heard has been WHY or HOW? did this flood happen. A few emails that I received kept asking those questions. A statement from Carl in Harold: "It hadn't rained for days and days like I have seen before"

Carl... I think the grpahic below will answer your question. I'll go into more detail below!

This has been a very wet period for the folks in eastern Kentucky. Just before the flooding occurred... the NWS in Jackson issued a report on how they were well on their way to breaking a record for precip in May. Interesting enough... the record year was May of 2004! Some of you may remember a very similar situation happened right around Memorial Day of that same year. This was caused by the same thing... very saturated ground leading up to the event and then an overwhelming amount of rain in a very short amount of time. During our continuous coverage of the situation I kept getting those old eerie feelings coming back to me. As I look back now I realize it was for good reason... it was nearly the same thing!

Even the mention of more rain will make the toughest people shudder with fear. Especially, since most of the high water just receded for most folks. This is a very "iffy" situation and it is one that I am going to be very careful with. I certainly don't want to send you off in a panic and I don't to under play the seriousness of heavy rainfall.

So follow me here... I do expect thunderstorms in our area and as I have mentiond in previous blogs about thunderstorms... they can and do produce heavy amounts of rain. I am posting a statement I made just the other day in one of these posts  "I have seen just one thunderstorm dump 4" or more in less than one hour. So just imagine if we get that out of one or two storms. That could lead to a whole world of problems with the current saturation level of the ground." This is even more serious than the last time I posted it... especially, in those areas like Lee, Owsley, Breathitt, Magoffin, Floyd, Martin, and Pike Counties. The reason I highlight those is because that's were the heaviest rain fell. Here's another graphic pointing that out.

So any more rainfall will make for an ugly occasion around here. What I want you to take from this post is that there are several chances for showers & storms and that could lead to some issues. Just be prepared!

C-Ya Bye