Good Tuesday, everyone. We have some very nice weather rolling our way over the next few days. That’s certainly something for early holiday travelers to be thankful for. Give thanks now, because things turn wet as we head into Black Friday and that becomes a trend into early next week.

I’m still putting the finishing touched on my winter forecast (Yes, I am STILL doing homework on it), so I’m not going to get too wordy in this update. That winter forecast airs tonight at 6 on WKYT-TV. Shameless plug.

Rain rolls in from west to east Friday and then hangs around into early Saturday. We may catch a break at some point this weekend before another system rolls in from the southwest. The flow from this thing comes straight from the southwest…

GFS 2

The end result on the GFS is a lot of rain from the Mississippi Valley into our region…

GFS Temps 2

The latest run from the European Model is much worse than that. It shows wave after wave of low pressure working from southwest to northeast across our region into the middle of next week. That puts down a ton of rain…

Euro 5

I got to looking at the upper air charts on this model run and kept thinking… now, where have I seen this look before?

The answer was the first week of December 1978 (Geek alert… I research old patterns in my spare time.). Take a look at the similarities…

Euro 4

The December 1978 scenario gave us a major flood event. I’m not saying that’s happening this go around, but it’s interesting to see a model run look so similar to that exact setup and the exact same time of year. Just something to watch.

I had noticed 1978 popping up frequently on the medium range analog list over the past few weeks. Interestingly enough, the overall progression of that winter isn’t too dissimilar to what I will show you in the winter forecast later today.

The weekly long range European Ensembles run is out and takes us through Christmas Eve. Here’s what it shows for the average temps from now through then…

Euro

Precipitation…

Euro 3

And snowfall…

Euro 2

My real takeaway from that is it shows a very active pattern through December.

So much for me keeping this update short. The things I do for you people!

I will update things later today. Take care.