Good Sunday and Happy New Year. We are rolling into the first work week of the year on a very active weather note. Things start out with thunderstorms and end with arctic air and snow possibilities.
Let’s start things out by tracking some scattered showers in from south to north…
Gusty south to southwesterly winds crank up tonight and Monday ahead of a low pressure working into the region. This will touch off showers and thunderstorms through Monday night and some of them can be strong. This looks like a nasty severe weather outbreak across the south with a low risk of severe across Kentucky…
An arctic front moves in here Tuesday night with the possibility of some snowflakes just behind it. This sets the stage for a very cold stretch of weather and a good chance for, at least, a light snowfall. As expected, each model run handles the Thursday through Saturday systems differently.
The GFS had lost the late week system for the past several days. All of a sudden, it finds it again this afternoon…
Here’s the snowfall map from that particular run (it will change many times)…
At least for one run, the GFS fits the “lower Ohio Valley/Tennessee Valley” setup the pattern has been suggesting for a while now.
The individual members of the GFS have several members showing a healthy system…
The GFS and its Ensembles have a friend in the Japanese model…
The Canadian Model has a light snowfall Thursday into Thursday night…
It then follows that up with a suppressed system, bringing a snow swipe to southeastern Kentucky later Friday…
The European Model has a similar look with the Thursday system…
It also shows a suppressed solution for the Friday storm…
The models won’t fully get a handle on all this until the energy is into the country and can be properly sampled. That should happen Monday into Tuesday.
All I can say is the pattern favors, at least, a light snowfall in our region. It also favors arctic cold temps from late week into the weekend.
The Canadian puts some snow on the ground and gives you these temps for next weekend…
Looking beyond that period, this is a pattern that can repeat itself the following week and into much of the month. One way to see that is to expand the GFS Ensembles snow maps we looked at above. Let’s add on another week to those…
Notice how several members show a snow threat into the DEEP south? That would be indicate some pretty big cold shots as well.
I will hook you up with another update later tonight. Happy New Year and take care.
Well I was hoping to here more of a “THREAT” talk, but I guess we will have to settle for “AT LEAST”.
Chris has learned to not go into threat mode to soon on this site, to many people get their undergarments in a was if it doesn’t pan out.
Thanks for the update and all the hard work you have done on New Year’s–much appreciated:)
The old saying is : “whatever you do on New Year’s, you will do all year long.”
I guess that means I will be tracking weather systems all year long…wait….this is no change from any other year!
So if the models stayed true from this point forward, are we looking at a general 1-3 inches for Thursday into Thursday night?
Friday night
Yawn meter is still holding in at a strong 10 haha…
Nobody cares.
So at least the models are coming into agreement of some snow for all. Catch 22! Don’t like that most of the models have a bigger hit futher south, but we also have the NW shift to look at. Going to be fun to track. Hope it ends with fun and games for all.
Don’t doubt the northwest shift as things draw closer. Of course, that usually means more warm air too. Fence time!
Guys don’t kid yourself you will be lucky to see a flake and you all.know it
Gotta love your optimism it’s off the chain
With temps moderating into high 40s on that second week, why do those show more snowfall? Which models show this deep freeze more than a few days?
Looks like more flurries and a couple days of dry cold.
I’ve been coming here for years, used to commet from time to time, this is not for everyone, but I have never seen more people with such negative attitudes in my life! Worse than a UK football message board after the 2nd week of this years season when we were 0-2, just got demolished by Florida the week after we lost at home to S. Miss! The ones who say you can never trust a model 7 days out when it says snow, are the first that say heat wave from a model run 6 days out! And the ones who b**ch about meteorologist getting the forecast wrong, if its so easy become a meteorologist, predict a week in advance when a storm thats still not in N. America will produce weather in our neck of the woods! Good luck to you. Keep up the good work Mr. Bailey, I appreciate the hard work and dedication you put forward everyday. To the positive posters, you know who you are, I salute you.
100% agree. I’m not even sure why people here are so negative on this board. If you think it’s not going to snow ever then just stop posting. If you are so comvinced you are right, forget about the weather and pretend you live in South Florida. Sheesh. Thank you Chris, for informing us and keeping is up to date about the pattern and the possibilities.
Been missing you Biggins
Thank you Chris!! I have been reading your blog for years as a teacher looking for snow days Thank you for all you do!
Snowfall later this week looks light for most of us, generally under an inch…but a 1-3″ stripe is possible for part of SE Kentucky according to GFS analogs
Here is my experience after reading this blog all of these years –
If we want snow here, we need to be on the edge of the arctic air, not deeply entrenched in it. If I’m not mistaken, this is what happened with the two giant snows we had here, causing the lows to move along the boundary (giving us training snows). If we are deeply entrenched in arctic air, the lows will go very far south because of the arctic air. The only other hope for snow when you are deeply entrenched in arctic air is from clippers and maybe a few other exceptions (I don’t know what they are though)
This is why when Chris said storms going just to our south a few days ago, I thought he was talking about storms being suppressed by arctic air.
I’m no weather expert – so I could be totally wrong on this. But I have learned a few things over the years.
Chris tweeted the gfs and Canadian are bow showing a healthier snow for late week storm