June 22, 2011 Louisville-Jefferson County, KY Storm Chase Highlights

First of all, if you would like to make use of this video or a longer cut of it that I have for any purposes, please contact me on here or by email, and I'll help you out.
jonathanwahl@att.net

Secondly, I'm shooting video with my iPhone; so, please excuse the shakiness. I wish I had one of those little dash cams, but you can't always get what you want.

During the early evening hours of June 22, 2011 a heavy downpour just west of Louisville-Jefferson County, KY started to rotate and produced a tornado touchdown in Harrison County, IN prompting a tornado warning for much of that county, much of Floyd County, IN and a western portion of Jefferson County, KY. When the storm moved out of the warned area, rotation continued, and the storm intensified, producing a tornado touchdown and damage around Churchill Downs. A new tornado warning was issued for much of the eastern portion of Jefferson County. After this storm moved into far eastern Jefferson County, another storm behind it began to rotate. No tornado was observed with this storm; however, there was some impressive rotation in the clouds. This video is a compilation of some highlights of me chasing the storms through eastern Louisville. I shot a lot of video, and this is all the best footage from it.

Here is the official report from The National Weather Service in Louisville based on damage surveys conducted on Thursday, June 23, 2011

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=lmk&storyid=69971&a...

Here's a look at the second tornado of the day (the first one in Jefferson County, KY that day) as it approached Churchill Downs. This is probably the best video by far out of a lot of the videos that have been posted or shown on television because of how close the person shooting the video is to the tornado itself.
http://youtu.be/CJ9970TF3aI

Here's another look at the same tornado, but from farther away and from an elevated vantage point.
http://youtu.be/fi_j5H-VCf8

Copyright © 2011, Jonathan Wahl

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Tornado
• Louisville
• June 22 2011
• 06/22/2011
• Funnel Cloud
• Rotation
• Wall Cloud

[kycruisecrazy]

Love the video. You did the same thing I did. I came in from Bullitt Co to video. I told myself to head no further north on 65 then Fern Valley Rd. LOL

[jw870206]

@kycruisecrazy If there was going to be so much tornado activity in J-Town, I really wish it had happened earlier instead of at night.

[jw870206]

@kycruisecrazy I would have been all over the J-Town activity if it had happened in the daylight, but one thing I will never do is spot/chase at night anywhere at all, let alone in Kentucky. That's a major accident waiting to happen. When the daylight really started to fade, I was in the far east end again on Storm #2, I went straight home.

[ironmaidenequalsbest]

alot of the state got real lucky like i live in the polo fields neighborhood past middletown down shelbyville road and they were saying my street name on the news that we were in the worst part but yet no touchdown. clouds were scary tho lol

[jw870206]

@ironmaidenequalsbest The reports come into the station after the fact, usually, and the radar isn't pinpoint accurate, but it's very close. Yes, there was a lot of luck involved. Ground truth reports are the best thing to have...even better than radar. In the next ten years, I hope, we'll be seeing the next big improvement in weather radar—the best since NEXRAD was completed.

[jw870206]

@ironmaidenequalsbest That day a lot of it was just concentrated in the immediate Louisville area and areas immediately surrounding Louisville Metro. The atmosphere was just ripe for storms to develop. I didn't know the winds were good enough, though. If anything, the event was an anomaly—a matter of right place right time or wrong place wrong time, depending on what side you prefer to be. For me it was right place right time, but hoping that no one gets hurt or killed.

[michie3100]

omg pakesboy that is where i live

[ChristineThePikachu]

The first person who disliked this should get punched in the face.

[pakesboy]

I live in louisville, in the st. matthews area.

[Puppylove5274]

this happened on my dad's birthday