Good Monday, everyone. As hard as it is to believe, Christmas week is here and things are starting off on a very cold note across Kentucky. One would assume this bodes well for cold and snow chances for Christmas. This is why one should never assume. ๐
We have a big storm system set to impact the weather around here over Christmas weekend. This bad boy can take a little walk on the wild side. I’ll get to that in a moment.
Let’s start with today and roll ahead.
This Monday is starting out on a bitterly cold note across central and western parts of the state. The west and far north may see some single digits showing up. Wind chills could even dip below zero. Out east, clouds and flurries will likely linger to start the day, keeping temps closer to 20.
A mix of sun and clouds will be noted area wide today with highsย from the mid 20s west to the low 30s east.
Tuesday starts very cold with teens across the board, but a few singles may pop in the north and west. This leads us into a seasonally cold second half of Tuesday into Wednesday.
A weak system then dives in from the northwest on Thursday and brings some flurries or light snow showers…
That takes us into the start ofย a very active Christmas weekend. A potent storm system develops in the Rockies and rolls into the Midwest. That setup can bring very windy, warm and wet weather our way. Here’s the Canadian…
Taken verbatim, the Canadian shows a blizzard in the high pains and upper Midwest, and strong thunderstorms across the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys. Here’s the rainfall output from that model run…
The European Model has a similar overall evolution. It throws one round of chilly, moderate rains our way for Christmas Eve…
The big system behind it in the Rockies then wraps up as it moves into the Midwest…
That setup isn’t too dissimilar to what we just went through over the weekend. We shall see how it all works out in the coming days.
I will hook you up with another update or two later today. Make it a great Monday and take care.
If this is how the weather is going to play out it’s going to be a long miserable 3 months.
If it’s going to rain 99.9% of the time let it warm up please.
It will warm up when it warms up. We can’t hasten it.
Really?
Warm and wet, then dry and cold.
Thelma Lou’s been dreaming of a blow torch Christmas; well not really but you get the idea. When was the last time we had strong t’storms on the big day?
Only fell to 27 here in Harlan this morning…a degree or to above average…arctic air did not reach this part of the country as forecasted to hit 40 or so today.
I thought that model last night looked familiar it’s the same one as this past Saturday. Nothing here, move on along.
starting out at 27 this morning much warmer than advertised.
Usually I take a break following the weather from April till October. …it was predicted to possibly be a December to remember with cold and snow chances. It’s not been that cold and snow is way up north…so I think I’m going to take a break and maybe see whit January can possibly do.Everyone have a wonderful CHRISTmas!
Yeah,
Remember those computer models from a couple weeks ago showing the snow potential?
The rain will be good. Hope we can manage a few wrap around flakes!
CPC says the next 4 weeks will be above normal temp wise for the Ohio Valley and the east coast.
It stinks, doesn’t it?!
Well, life goes on and the weather is still better than the late summer through late fall period was, at least we have some ACTIVE weather to gripe about!
I think it will be more up and down again like early December with perhaps another cold wave by mid-late January. The December to Remember hyperbole by Bastardi et al. worked out OK if you were north of I-70. Not so much down here. One has to remember that Bastardi focuses a lot on energy so a cold/snowy bias from him is hard to ignore. Personally, I doubt will tack on any more measurable snow this month. Glad we got the cold preview, but the pattern that we’ve had never really was a good one for snow. I’ve been around these parts for a long while.
I thought predicting anything more than a few days into the future in the weather world was laughable. When a model comes out showing the next 2 weeks snowfall and everyone laughs saying take it with a truck load of salt – shouldn’t the same be said if a model is predicting above normal temps 3 weeks into the future?
With predictions of temperatures long term you look at pna’s rather it negative, neutral, or positive signals. Basically over all global patterns. The true artic is going to retreat back to the North Pole. It’s funny not 2-3 weeks ago most mets said the chances of a white Christmas this year would be better than most years. I promise you that forecast is blown right out of the sky. We might be looking at high temperatures in the 60’s on Christmas Day. The good old GFS 2-3 weeks ago had double digits snowfall on the ground by late December and beginning of January that’s not remotely going to happen.
You can’t put any faith in any of the models predicting snow/cold more than two days out let alone a month. On the other if they predict warmer than normal. You can take it to the bank, very good chance it will be right.
Yawn
I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas
‘Cause that’s the best our state can do
With a muddy landing
For good ol’ Santy
And snow only in cartoons…
I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas
Because I know it will come true
45 is the best temp we’ll get
‘Cause Kentucky Christmases are wet.
Still got January and February to get our chances of snow. Never under estimate March either have see worst snowfall happen in march in our Kentucky home.
Gotta love the March snowstorms you get a foot of snow and 48 hrs later be in the low 70’s.
Rain for Christmas? Rain!!!!! Just rain. If we had cold weather like today, we would have a white Christmas. Ugh!! We want snow on Christmas. Please change this forecast to reflect the way Christmas should be around these parts!!!! ๐
If your thinking that Christmas should be a white one in the Ohio Valley you might want to think again. Chance of a white Christmas in our neck of the woods is 10%. It rarely happens.
It may be rare, but it still should snow-lol.
I don’t have to have snow for Christmas but I do want cold weather. Too much food to store it all in the refrigerator and we count on cold weather so we can store some of it on the back porch.
I strongly suggest you come up with a plan B.
Maybe You’ll get a Yeti Cooler for Christmas.
70 degrees forecasted for Christmas day.
were Florida ? forecasting 45 on Christmas day here in western,ky
Louisville
Me thinks CB’s winter outlook was spot on. It has so far panned out: Not much snow with cold and warm spikes. Second half of winter is where the ice chances kick in. Models will probably show as snow at first, and then Vanilla Ice be kickin’ in with his rip-off of Queen’s Under Pressure riff.
Potential bad news that CB’s winter outlook is falling into place.
Are we ever gonna have a snowy Christmas? The last time I remember it snowing on Christmas morning was back in 2002. I’ll never forget it because we didn’t wanna open presents we were more fascinated with the heavy snow.
That was 2004
Had 6″ of snow Christmas morning in 2010 in southern ky. Go back thru the analogs on the blog..
https://kyweathercenter.com/?p=753#comments
We don’t live in the metro so bit doesn’t count; )
Yep, 1″ on the ground in 2010 in Louisville too.
Hey Blizzardtim! Yea, Bowling Green KY, Nashville TN, Huntsville AL among other places had “official” white Christmas’s (at least an inch or more) in 2010. For just the second time in recorded history, Auburn AL had only their second White Xmas!
Then came that big snow in early January 2011 in Atlanta, Huntsville, etc. (16 inches along the Alabama-Tennessee line).
I love in Paintsville and don’t recall that at all?
Prelude, 02 04, whenever I just remember waking up excited cause snow was flying. Seems like every christmas now here is nothing but balmy weather. But then we get the big snows in Jan and Feb.
Lots of winter left for sure. But disappointing to have these very cold snaps without just ONE weather system slipping to our south and giving us measurable snow. Rodger kicks himself every winter for putting ANY CREDENCE in the models more than maybe 48 hours in advance. And hate a warm Christmas day. Oh well! Rodger in Dodger
I get what you are saying. Dry cold snaps and wet warm periods. Yuck.
Since moving here in summer ’96. I missed the big ’94 and ’96 winters here, although I was in Knoxville in ’96 and we had a lot of snow, but not as much as they had here –
Anyway – my point is in all the years of living here, it seems like anything that has ever happened in winter that has been major has been in Feb and March. The Feb ’98 blizzard, the Feb ice storm of ’02 or ’03 (can’t remember which year) and the recent monster storms we had all happened AFTER January…. And I don’t remember there being much snow other than ankle biters up to feb and sometimes not even that – You would think that there would be a LOT of January big storms – but I’m trying to remember any and I can’t – although I know that happened a lot before ’96
Snow can get OLD really quick – everyone was craving snow – then we got a huge storm, it stayed on the ground a while and the city was talking about fining people for not shoveling sidewalks – then when the first storm melted, there was ANOTHER huge one…..and none of this happened until after January was over…
Wait until mid-feb at least to start getting depressed if you love snow.
Last years big storm was on January 22. I think. But I agree with you. Our Winters do seem to start much later now. I think we can put any hope of Christmas snow to rest again this year. Extended forecast in my area has low to mid 60’s for the 24th and 25th.
We have not had many snows on the 24th or 25th. With a few exceptions, our main snows have been after December.
I think the pre last two winter big snow drought dampens perception a little. Some here are already in “what have you done form me lately” mode ๐ A lot of us had THREE big record snows in less than a year, over two winters.
That is enough shoveling for me ๐ ๐ As long as no big ice, no problem to me if light on the snow. The latter is the least of apparent evils ๐
I like the big ones just as much as most everyone on this blog does. But it would be nice to get at least an ankle biter or two for the holidays.
YAWN
CB is noting 1983. Wasn’t that the winter that there was a big snow and then it thawed it March 1984 and caused a huge flood in east KY? That was a key reason for the anti-flood system development in east KY.
1977 was the worst flood in Knox county
My mother was in high school at the time of the 77 flood which literally destroyed Harlan…nothing left this day and time, economically speaking anyways.
Pushing 70 this weekend for SE KY unless a lot of cloud cover related to the pending storm can keep temps down…combined with the high prospects of above average temps next week, I bet the monthly average ends up close to normal!
Weather models are worthless looking ahead more than 96 hours in the future. Most models were forecasting big snows for us during Christmas week. Now they are predicting possible record highs on Christmas day! I am going to try and not get excited about models predicticting future snow storms until 48 hours before the snow storm could hit our area.