Good afternoon, everyone. It’s a dreary day across the bluegrass state, with chilly showers dotting our sky. The leading edge of the showers even had a little sleet thrown in for good measure. The active pattern leading up to Christmas is still the top weather headline, but the final headline is a long way from being written.
This afternoon’s showers continue to press through here and are pretty light…
Isolated showers will hang around over the next few days, with our middle of the week system continuing to trend wetter.
The NAM has now joined the European Model in showing a healthy rain event for parts of the region on Wednesday…
Similar to today, the northern edge of that may begin and end as a touch of sleet.
The Christmas weekend systems continue to show up differently with each computer forecast model run. The past two runs of the GFS show this point well. The 6z run trended colder with the initial system Friday into Saturday, then showed our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day system coming together as a snow maker…
Check out that 1064 arctic high showing up behind all that. Wow.
The GFS from 6 hours later looked totally different, even losing the big arctic blast behind it…
The Canadian Model has been lost in the woods with it all, but is, at least, getting the trend right of two systems…
The European Model also continues to bounce back and forth between extremes. The last run had the cold overwhelming the pattern, killing any kind of storm system. The new run holds some energy back, leading to a prolonged period of heavy, overrunning precipitation…
That’s likely keeping the cold too far to the west, but still results in this for Christmas Night and Tuesday…
The low-level cold air is typically shown too far west on forecast models.
Regardless, you’re seeing the back and forth on all the models as they continue to try and figure out exactly what to do.
I’m still riding this almost week old map and think it’s in excellent shape…
Looking farther down te road… The CFS 5 day temperature anomaly maps (In Celsius) show one heck of a push of cold that hangs tough into January.
Here’s the period for Christmas week…
Here’s the 5 days around the New Year…
It stays cold deep into the New Year…
I will have another update this evening. Enjoy this fine Sunday and take care.
should be a fun week of tracking!
Wow, so many things to look at and analyze to make a forecast! Looks like it’s going to be a long and interesting week of forecasting for Mets all across the region. So thankful for Chris and everything he does to keep us informed!
I love snow hope we have a white Christmas we’re over due one but I’m gonna say that most big winter storms for ky show up 2 or 3 days prior not week and half out hope this one happens but I’m not holding my breath
The GFS is running the same play book that it has been running for years.
Euro off GFS on, GFS off Euro on, I have nevertheless trusted the Canadian as it always favors there own Country and forecasting lows to take air for the Great Lakes giving us all rain and snow well North. I will say this the Indicies and the boundary (Warm/Cold) seem to be setting up well for an potential Apps runner. Xmas may not be White, but I will go out on a limb and call for a White New Year.
Can you tell me what an Apps Runner is ? This term is new to me.
An apps runner would be a system that comes up from the gulf with plenty of moisture and the center of low pressure ‘runs up the spine of the Appalachians’. Depending on which side of the apps it runs, big snows can setup to the west.
It’s kinda like a unicorn. We talk about them but rarely see them 🙂
Thanks Mike
Sorry Mark
It’s Christmas not Xmas I hate that !
Call the Bless day Christmas never Xmas.
It’s a weather blog, but ok Christmas week.
Don’t you need a strong high pressure ridge out along the west coast with temperatures above normal in Alaska to have an Arctic outbreak in the center of the country ? That’s the way it was in the winter of 1978. To me that was our last cold and snowy winter. By the way that was a weak ENSO El nino winter. I feel that this weak ENSO La nina we are experiencing is destroying are chances for a big snow event.
Guys you all know well as I do its going to be a chilly rain with backside flurries.really theirs not anything that overly interesting to track your all just grasping at straws I understand considering what it’s been like the last couple years but let’s just let this one go.
Could get some mix action and a few festive flakes. Key is ice does not seem to be a trending factor as appeared.
Ridge, No Ridge or Super Mega Ridge is the question
Looks like a trend is starting……no storm at all.
I really believe a drought is beginning, my county is now in the abnormally dry category. If we don’t get any rain from the next system we will be below normal for the year. Any of you out there remember 1988 ? It’s when we had the great drought. 1988 was an ENSO El nina year.
Correction La nina
1969-70 had both a White Christmas and White New Years Day, and a cold snowy winter there after, but that was in Washington, Indiana. By the way that was also an ENSO El nino winter. I tell you folks the climate has really changed.
What happened to the cold taking us over throughout this month?
Need that trough out west to dig like earlier epic runs on Saturday..Example..Here’s latest Goofy run..
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2017121718/gfs_z500a_us_29.png
Here’s Saturday 12z..
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2017121612/gfs_z500a_us_34.png
Big difference..
Stay tuned…the 12 runs of Christmas are coming. Oh, that’s right, we have already seen at least two sets of these runs and everyone of them has had a different verse. You know, when we go back and review all of the runs from these models, one would expect at least one run might come close to matching what’s finally going to happen….Not.
The latest shows it’s not really going to be that cold and the fronts will probably will go through dry ?