If you live in America and possibly Canada you may have heard about the Eastern Kentucky Floods. If you live in the American South, which Kentucky is considered a southern state, you most certainly heard about the Eastern Kentucky Floods.

The flooding in eastern Kentucky has been tragic. As of this entry 25 people are confirmed dead and the death toll is expected to rise. Also, damage could be in the Billions. Places like Jackson Kentucky have had over 14 inches of rain. Some other spots have had over 17 inches of rain.

So what caused this tragic event? As a Forecaster/Meteorologist I'm going to try and explain how this event unfolded.

A frontal system stalled over Kentucky and southern Appalachia. This frontal system could not move due to lack of steering currents. High Pressure to the North East kept this frontal system parked. Then you had moist air being pulled up from the Gulf of Mexico.

What happened is numerous clusters of thunderstorms developed for several days. A lot of these clusters moved over the same area. Moreover, these clusters did not move to much. There is also another factor in play that enhanced the flooding. Eastern Kentucky is very hilly and mountainous. A lot of the elevations are 2,000-4,000 feet. Higher elevations can sometimes enhance rainfall due to oceanic lift squeezing out more moisture.

The climate also plays a role. Like most of the Southern States Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky have a Humid Subtropical Climate. Most places in Kentucky average 40-55 inches of rainfall per year.

All these ingredients came together to produce a historic flood. The bad news is a new frontal system will develop sending more storm chances toward that area. This could enhance flooding.

I walked in expecting a discussion of Kentucky food (Cause I kept misreading the title and was expecting like KFC discussion or something) and walked away learning that Kentucky floods and I feel smarter from reading the thread so all I can say is excellent thread there's definitely not anything else like this on the site and if you do more threads like this I would be interested in what other places you'd discuss why the weather is the way it is for that area.

SonicOlmstead : Thank you for the kind words. I plan on making more threads concerning weather stories. I used to do that years ago on this site. But I went through some medical things that I have shared on other threads/post. Hopefully I'm back now.