This is just for West Ky and also includes Mid Tn. So it will be different from PAH's top 10 which I will give you the link to at the end of the blog post.
Anyway with Christmas over and New Year's coming it is time for the top 10 of 2008. Since I will give good links and with all the craziness around life it will be a good deal shorter than the 2006 and 2007 ones. It will be posted on the West Ky Blogspot.
NUMBER 1 EVENT ( This isn't hard this year)
1) SUPER TUESDAY TORNADO EVENT- While the IKE wind event could of been here as far as the tears shed, and lives lost, and area that will be effected forever this I think deserves to be a number 1 weather event in more than one person's list. This was the deadliest tornado outbreak to hit our area ( West KY/ Mid TN) since the Super Outbreak of 1974. There were over 5 supercells and a squall line moved though the area starting in the afternoon of the 5th though the early morning hours of the 6th. It is also bores a lot of similarities to the legendary Enigma Outbreak of Feb 19th 1884. The worst damage and the 28 lives lost across West KY and Mid TN plus 3 more when one supercell crossed into central KY where caused by two supercells. One went though West KY as it started in Weakley County TN then proceeded into Graves and Calloway county. In Calloway county it produced an ef-1 tornado east of Murray which was the first tornado of the event. Then it moved across Trigg county and dropped two tornadoes. This is where it got devastating. It went into NW Christian County between US 68 and Dawson Springs and slammed the Crofton area with high end Ef2 damage. In this area several homes and sheds were damaged and some even destroyed. Then it went for Muhlenberg county. It hit a mobile home park and caused 3 deaths in the mobile home park west of Greenville than crossed and closed main roads and devastated the town of Powderly. This tornado narrowly missed a high school basketball game that was in session. This tornado went into the Central City area where 160 mph winds were recorded and a factory was completely demolished. It was a high end Ef-3 tornado. This tornado went on to produce tornadoes in Brandenburg KY. After causing over 25 million dollars of damage, several injuries, and 3 deaths.
Supercell 2 started in NW MS then hit the Morris Chapel area with EF4 intensity and completely wiped houses clean of the foundation. Than it moved into the Fairfield area.
This storm then caused the destruction as it missed Nashville but struck Sumner, Macon, and Trousdale Counties very hard. With caused 24 fatalities. One good news story from Castailian Springs TN as a baby feel face first in mud by the tornado but survived with nothing more than scrapes and bruises.
This was the deadliest tornado in Mid TN since the Beatty Swamps tornado of 1933.
2) April 11th 2008 Tornadoes
This event although child's play compared to Feb 5th was a respectable severe wx event. The first tornado was an ef-1 tornado in the Dickson TN area. One Ef-3 tornado occurred in Lawrence County and continued into Giles County TN. This tornado caused over 3 million dollars of damage and one injury including a destroyed TVA plant around US 43. This was part of a supercell that moved from Wayne/Lawrence County and moved all the way though the Crossville TN area towards East TN. McMinnville suffered some good damage to from an Ef-1 tornado that went though. All and all 6 tornadoes occurred in Mid Tn including some large hail and damaging winds.
3) Ike Wind Event- This for the PAH CWA was voted the number 1 of 2008 in a busy weather year. There were also 2 deaths in Nashville because strong winds knocked down a golfer on the course. Over 65 million dollars of damage occurred in West KY by wind gusts of 60 to 80MPH even more costly than Super Tuesday. Some areas up to my Northwest and North were without power for a week. Several counties esp in Far West KY and Nw KY declared state of emergency and closed school because there was no power in the area, and all the debris on the road made it difficult to travel in the area.
4) Feb. 11th/12th Ice Storm- After clean up efforts of Super Tuesday of 2008. An major big time overrunning situation setup and impacted West KY. some minor icing went to effect Mid TN thu Hopkinsville KY to Muhlenburg county KY as the system departed on the night of the 12th. This overrunning situation along with approaching arctic air and warm air advection clashed on the site of NW TN and West KY. Once the precip started around Midday in Far West KY and Mid Afternoon across the rest of West KY and parts of TN . Most of TN stayed above freezing so it was mostly rain with scattered remains of precip behind the arctic air bring 1/10- 2/10 inch of ice in KY/TN border and West Mid TN areas the night after on the 12th. The worst was in West KY ..noon and evening thru early morning of the 12TH. The overrunning pattern lead to training of precip. At first it started as Snow and SLeet some was quite heavy snow and sleet. The worst of this storm and most of the precip was from Bardwell to Dawson SPrings KY. This area received 1/4 inch to some areas about 1 inch of straight Freezing Rain. 1/4 inch Sig Ice and 1/2 is devastating and 1 inch plus is legendary and pot. historic. Livingston County was hit hard. Henderson/Owensburo area got very devastated with over 3-4 inches of Snow/Sleet than the 1 inch of ice fell/ Power was out in some areas for a week. Satellite images showed the ice 3 or 4 days after the storm and most roads and several trees were knocked down. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/cr
5) March 7th-8th Snowstorm (Class of 08 Blizzard) A strong Gulf Low formed as Arctic plunge shot into the area. This along with March Gulf( Big SNow Storms can occur in March due to Heavy Gulf Moisture if an plunge of Arctic air can dive in the area.) All of West KY and a good deal of Mid TN got effected by this Winter Storm. Snow started across West KY starting at 3pm and covered all of West KY and going into NW parts of Mid TN by 6pm. Effected rest of Mid TN from about starting from about 8pm that light to start time about 1am on the Plateau. The duration of the storm wasnt real heavy 9 hours. What made this storm is something called banding " these are heavy bursts with sometimes thunder and lightning in an event known as "thunder snow" a word that wasnt excessively tossed around till Super storm of 1993 or Pre Christmas Storm of 2004 depending on your location. Houston County TN recieved the most snow in all of KY and TN and actually West and Central portions of KY and TN got more snow than Eastern portions because of the track of low moving north and northeast across East TN and mountains of Applachins. Houston County one person reported to recieved 16 inches. Widespread reports of 12-13 inches occured which was the most in the area. Clarksville received 5-7 Dover received 8, Powderly received 11 inches of snow and Waverly TN received a daily record 11 inches. Some counties in TN have areas report jsut a dusting but in another part of county get 3-4 inches. This is where banding comes in. Snow bands set up across West KY and Mid TN some communities escaped heavy snowfall altogether more in TN because KY part was more widespread. If you got under a snowband you would of expected to see 1-2 to sometimes as high as 2.5 INCHES of SNOW and Hour. And big example was northside of Nashville get locally upwards to 5 inches of snow for being trapped in a snow band for a few hours that produced at times 2 inches of snow an hour and whiteout conditons. South and East parts of the Town got left out and snowlovers were mad. The NWS office on Davidson/Wilson border technically is in Wilson county only received a little more that 1/2 inch of snow with some areas close by seeing 4+. Strong north winds caused snow to drift. Snow was drifting 3-4 feet in several locations causing blizzard like conditions. This storm in several areas actually qualified as Blizzard criteria ( A few storms can see that in KY and TN). More snowfall amounts can be found in links. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/cr
6) March/April heavy Rain and flood events- Events starting in March 3-4th when minor to moderate flooding occurred in West KY. The big events in this time frame that West KY and Mid TN endured were the March 18th-19th flood event. This event was at it's worst in NW KY. In which Henderson County was declared State of Emergency and boat rescues occurred. Also minor to moderate flooding occured in most of the Ohio River afterwards. With major flooding and the 7th highest crest on record at the Ohio River in Cairo. Another flood event really hit hard West KY esp Livingston County to Hopkins County north. Even though flooding was reported all across Mid TN and West KY. Several rescues had to occur in Madisonville. Many roads flooded in Henderson and Owensboro. 3 feet of water went into homes in Livingston County. Also because of wind shear of a storm that was present a brief Ef-1 tornado did occur in Graves County while the flooding was going on.
7) Prom Weekend Severe Weather- Prom was a special time of year for high school seniors like I was back in the day. But the Friday before into the first hour or two of that Saturday. After a storm hit the Carroll/Humphries county area with wind damage and a brief tornado. A few hail an wind storms hit west KY. The main event was a four Ef-1 tornadoes that hit Montgomery County From 11:30pm Friday May 2nd to 12:30am Saturday May 3rd. These tornadoes did tip over a mobile home in Palmyra injuring three and did damage to the Montgomery county fairgrounds.
8) Jan. 29th High Wind/Severe event- A top 5 event in calmer years this very widespread wind event both Non Thunderstorm and Thunderstorm was very close to the 1/18/96 outbreak of severe weather. Which would if we did a top 10 event chart of 96 would be 9th. Injuries occurred when glass from a store of a mall to someones back. 90MPH non-thunderstorm wind event struck the Hickman KY area hard. Damage was done in the Opry Mills area of Nashville TN. Several structures were damaged in Hopkins County KY. This was all caused as a winter time serial derecho formed ahead of an arctic cold front.
9) Jan 8th/10th Storms- Two storms hit on this busy week. On the 8th wind damage occurred in areas of West Mid TN and West KY. Along with a tornado warning and wall cloud/funnel cloud events in Owensboro and Murray KY areas. This was the first severe weather event of the year. In Mid TN a little more active day occurred on Jan 10th. Wayne/Lawrence County got hit with an Ef-2 tornado. Luckily a very rural area got hit with this so there wasn't a lot of damage with this tornado. In Winchester strong winds caused 2 injuries as thunderstorms charged though. Damaging Winds and large hail also occurred even into Kentucky.
10) The Drought Not as bad but Still there. By the end of the year the drought improved to D1 in Mid TN. It wasn't denied this year even though it wasn't near as bad as last year. A lot of the drought in Mid TN was leftovers of last years intense drought. But new drought occurred as June, August, September, and November were very dry months. It even spread into West KY. A lot of the damage was done last year and by this year's economy.
PAH's Top 10
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pa
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bn
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bn
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