Good Evening, gang. We have a weather pattern locked and loaded with harsh winter weather for much of the country. Several of my analog years featured harsh December weather (1983 for instance), and those appear to be leading the way.

Let’s talk quickly about the first arctic front moving in tonight. This won’t have much moisture with it, but can spit out a flake or two as you sleep. The really cold air is lagging behind this just a bit and filters in here later Thursday. After a brief taste of the sun, clouds will quickly fill back in on a northwesterly flow. Low-level moisture into Friday can spit out some snow flurries.

You can see all the widespread moisture courtesy of this Relative Humidity map at 925mb…

nam

Highs will be in the 20s but it will never feel that “warm”.

The late weekend system continues to look like a winter weather maker for our region. The European Model has gone back to a scenario of a very strong storm system over our heads. I don’t think that’s correct as the Euro has had a rough go of late in overdeveloping these kinds of systems.

Still, if the European is correct, things would start wintry before going to rain and then ending as snow.

The Canadian Model has also gone to a stronger storm system, but it’s keying more on the southern side of things. Instead of showing a potent low cutting into the Great Lakes, we have a Tennessee Valley system bringing snow to our region…

canadian

If we take that verbatim, the Canadian shows a big snowfall for Kentucky.

The GFS is more of a compromise with a weaker system…

gfs

If we take the GFS as shown, its snow and a wintry mix with some accumulations a good bet.

Next week will feature a major arctic attack for much of the country…

euro-2

That is one ugly looking air mass that will likely be introduced by a snowfall across our region.

Speaking of snowfall, the GFS Ensembles continue to have “that look” over the next 2 weeks…

gfs-snow-2

 

I will see you guys for the full update later tonight. Make it a good one and take care.