The worst severe weather season in the history of Louisville Kentucky may
not be over yet. The storm prediction center indicates that August could be
another stormy month for the Ohio Valley, which has seen the worst weather
in over a hundred years of record keeping.

The bad weather started on Memorial Day Weekend when the area was racked by
tornados, powerful straight line winds and very heavy rainfall, some areas
picked up over 6 inches of rain in one day. Unfortunately, it was just get
started. 50,000 people were left without power, some for as many as 6 days
in wake of the storms. Oddly enough, spring was very quiet, there were no
widespread severe weather outbreaks.

Over the next several weeks into late June, the area would experience
countless severe thunderstrom and tornado warnings, very heavy rainfall and
millions of dollars worth of property damage, but the worst storm didn't
come until July 13th. Up until this point, the worst weather has been in
Southern Indiana where a small town was wiped off the map by a powerful
tornado.

On the afternoon of July 13th, a strong cold front made it's way through
Illinois and Indiana toword the southeast. Out ahead of the front, a
powerful line of thunderstorms developed prompting the national weather
service to issue a tornado and severe thunderstorm watch for the Indiana and
Kentucky.

As the storms made there way through Indiana, the left widespread damage and
destruction in their wake. Leaving thousands without power, mowing trees
down and taking off roofs. As the storms crossed the Ohio River around 8:00
pm eastern daylight time, they intensified and radar showed a very
pronounced bow echo. The strorms ripped through Louisville and points south
and west producing winds of close to 100 mph (not tornadic), torrential
rainfall and deadly lightning.

As I stood out on my front porch watching the storms approach, the sky was
as black as I'd ever seen it. There was a gust front that moved through
initially with winds clocked at near 70 mph for several minutes, followed by
the heaviest rain I've ever seen. After about 5 minutes, the wind
intensified and topped out at what I believe was about 90 mph, ripping trees
up and taking roofs of houses. Very powerful winds considering this was not
a hurricane or a tornado. The power went out during the storm and stayed
out for 6 days, 140,000 people lost power in Louisville alone (population
300,000). I have never seen lightning as vivid as that evening, so much so
that I was terrified that my house would be struck, several trees nearby
where hit by lightning, snapping them in half like twigs.

Since the terrible storm on July 13th, there have been countless days of
heavy rain, strong winds and very vivid lighting and yes, more widespread
power outages. Fortunately, there has been nothing as bad as the storm we
had on the night of the 13th but none-the-less, it's made for a record
breaking year and cost homeowners and insurance companies, millions and
millions of dollars.