Lexington among 8 'safest weather cities,' The Weather Channel says

Lexington is among the eight "safest weather cities" in the nation, according to an analysis released recently by The Weather Channel.

But while the findings are interesting, WKYT meteorologist Chris Bailey said, "I don't put a whole lot of stock in fly-by-night studies like that. At least in their proclamation of some of the safest cities, they said Lexington was in the low end of the safest, and I would tend to agree with that."

Using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, Weather Channel meteorologist John Erdman looked at weather that could kill, such as excessive heat, snow and ice, cold, heavy rain that produces flooding, hurricane remnants, lightning and tornadoes.

From that historical data, Erdman came up with a list of safe weather cities. He assigned a rating for each potentially deadly weather phenomenon, on a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 for "no risk" and 5 for "high risk."

Based on that, Erdman concluded that Lexington can see flash floods and thunderstorms, but "tornadoes have left Fayette County alone, relative to other parts of Kentucky," according to The Weather Channel Web site, weather.com.

Also, Lexington sits far enough from the Gulf Coast that remnants of hurricanes "are well weakened" by the time they reach Central Kentucky, the Web site said.

"Only five tropical depressions and a lone tropical storm (Frederic 1979) have tracked within 75 miles of the city," the site said.

So "relative to other southern locations," Lexington is "a bit less hazardous, weather-wise," the site said.

Bailey said his problem with The Weather Channel analysis is this: "If you look back at the past decade, we had an F-3 tornado touch down in Lexington (in 2004). We've had two of the worst ice storms in the history of the city and state to strike (2003 and 2009). We had the deadly flash flood back in September 2006 as well.

"So I'm sure that there are some safer cities out there, but they have to have a threshold or cutoff on the size of the cities they include in that," Bailey said.

Bailey added that the study can give a false sense of security to the public.

The Weather Channel, to its credit, says "no city is 100 percent safe," Bailey said. "But any time you rank safe cities, then automatically people are going to say 'Oh, Lexington, we're one of the safest cities around for weather. So we don't have to worry about it the next time a tornado warning is issued.' That can lead to a false sense of security."

The bottom line for Bailey is that "while that's a good declaration from The Weather Channel, I don't put a lot of stock in it, and I certainly wouldn't let that affect me in how I prepare for severe weather, because in Lexington we get more than our fair share of severe weather.

"I mean, just last month we had our hottest temperature since 1936, and heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer overall. So, yeah, be vigilant, don't let your guard down, and weather is serious business when it's severe."

Asheville, N.C., was deemed the safest city in the South.

Other safe cities were Rochester, N.Y.; Honolulu; San Diego; Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.; International Falls, Minn.; and Caribou, Maine.

This story was originally published August 11, 2012 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Lexington among 8 'safest weather cities,' The Weather Channel says."