Good Tuesday, folks. Big changes are blowing in today… Literally. Gusty winds will take control of the weather as we get set for some wild temperature swings in the days ahead. With those temp swings, we are on guard for everything from thunderstorms and heavy rainfall to some freezing rain. Never a dull moment with Kentucky weather.

The current pattern of wild temperature variations is just a continuation of the pattern we have been in since late November. Normal is nowhere to be found as we have had either way above and way below normal temps. Since Thanksgiving, the cold is actually outperforming the warm across Kentucky…

cfs

That’s right, average temps across the entire state are COLDER THAN NORMAL since Thanksgiving. These wild temps swings were highlighted in the winter forecast and the reason I did not forecast a very cold and very snowy winter this year. Sorry, haters. 😉

Ok, let’s get into where we are going from here.

The day may start with some freezing rain across parts of the region. This can happen with temps slightly above freezing. How does that happen? Ground temps and road temps are below freezing, so any early rain can freeze on contact. Be advised of that possibility, especially in the north. General showers take over today with winds gusting to 40-45mph…

The front bringing today’s showers slams on the brakes just to our south and returns north as a warm front. This should cause some showers and thunderstorms to develop tonight into Wednesday…

nam

This will also be accompanied by another round of 40-45mph wind gusts. MUCH milder air surges in ahead behind this warm front as readings soar into the 60s by Thursday. That will also bring along additional high winds as an arctic front gets close to the region Thursday night.

The NAM only goes through early Friday morning, but watch our wild this temperature trend is over the next few days…

nam

That is really cool to see and really drives home the wild temp swings moving in here. Showers and some thunder will accompany that Thursday night temp drop. As the numbers keep dropping through the day, we will have to be on guard for some frozen precipitation.

The European Model is colder on Friday, upping the ante for some frozen stuff. From WeatherBell…

euro

The European Model continues the colder trend for the weekend and takes Saturday night temps into the mid and upper 20s for the northern half of the state…

euro-3

That shows rain in the south with a potential mix across the west and north.

The Canadian Model brings some 20s in here by Friday night…

canadian

It does not show precipitation around at that moment, but does have some ice showing up earlier in the day in the north and west…

canadian-2

The GFS isn’t quite as cold as the Canadian and European Models and keeps the freezing rain along and north of the Ohio River…

gfs-snow

If the GFS is off by one degree, that’s a bad look. Ironically, the GFS does show a stripe of snow across northern Kentucky late Friday…

gfs-snow-2

The GFS total precipitation forecast over the next week…

gfs-rain

As I have said for a while, we are walking a very fine line with the weather from Friday into the weekend. It will be interesting to watch the model trends in the coming days.

I will update things later today. Make it a good one and take care.