Photo provided
A Christian County native who works as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu has spent the last several days trying to get a grasp on what Hurricane Lane would do next.
Robert Ballard is a 1989 graduate of Hopkinsville High School and lived in the Herndon area for many of his younger years. He began work with the National Weather Service soon after graduating college and accepted a job offer at the Honolulu office in 2000.
Most have probably seen images on television of severe flash flooding and mud slides associated with the system that has now weakened to a tropical storm, but Ballard says Oahu—Hawaii’s most populated island and the island where he lives—has avoided the worst of the weather.
Ballard says predicting what Lane would do next as it approached the islands was very difficult.
The areas of Hawaii hit hard by persistent heavy rain have seen significant issues and Ballard reminds that western Kentucky has seen similar systems cause flooding—such as the remnants of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in Hopkinsville and last year Guthrie had major flooding from remnants of Hurricane Harvey.
Mother nature provided Ballard with a whole different kind of show than what he was treated to during the same week last year, as he spent eclipse weekend in Christian County and even made an appearance on WHOP on the morning of the event.
Listen to the entire interview below.