Good Tuesday to one and all. Here’s hoping you had the merriest Christmas since Bing Crosby danced with Danny Kaye (That’s the clean version of Christmas Vacation 🙂 ). Now, it’s time to focus on the remaining days of 2017, as we track a prolonged period of frigid temps and snow chances.
The first chance for light snow and flurries zips across our skyline today and into early Wednesday. Think of these as light snow streaks coming from west to east. In the overall scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal.. I will have your tracking toys in a bit.
Frigid air takes control behind this for the rest of the week. Lows by Wednesday morning have a shot at reaching singles in the far north. Wind chills may drop to zero or below over the next few mornings. This cold is so stout, it’s basically crushing the end of the week system.
The weekend is a different story, with a couple of systems potentially impacting our weather.
The European Model continues to blast an arctic system through the Ohio Valley, with snow developing…
The model then brings the arctic into our region, but it’s not quite as cold as what the other models are showing.
The GFS has a light snow maker to start the weekend, with a bigger system rounding the trough and sliding just to our south to begin the new year…
I’m still not exactly sure how all that is going to play out, because there are so many players hitting the court. One of those players could be historic cold taking over parts of the country. That run of the GFS shows these lows for the first few days of the year…
Wind chills are borderline obscene on this run…
All of that is likely taking things to the extreme, obviously. It’s still amazing to see showing up on occasion.
The Canadian has a very similar theme to the GFS, and is trying to get more of a system to work through the base of the trough to start the New Year…
It also has multiple mornings below zero around here, with brutal cold across the country…
We will see how all this shakes out in the coming days.
Here are the light snow and flurry tracking toys to start things out…
Hamburg Area from WKYT Studio
Lexington
I-275 approaching KY 20/Airport
Near Covington
US 60 @ US 127
Frankfort
Downtown Louisville @ 2nd & Broadway
Louisville
I-65 MP 92.4
Elizabethtown
I-65 MP 36
Near Bowling Green
I-24 MP 7 @ US 62
Paducah
I will have updates later today. Until then, make it a great day after Christmas and take care.
Without a decent snowpack, I would add about 10-14 degrees to those numbers.
Maybe five degrees anyway, but still crazy cold potential. Wild that Kentucky could be a snow median, with systems going north and south of us. We’ve had that happen a few winters (hence dome talk in past) but at least got some ankle biters from the fringes. Wondering if we even get that.
Jeff is right, I am a broken record, though a reflection of our Seinfeld-esk snow results. Lot of talk about nothing.
Will we be played by the GFS Again? Is the GFS sniffing out something the EURO doesn’t see? Tune in next week, On the next episode of..As the weather models run
Nothing much to get played on, even with the models. The ingredients do not seem to be in place so far looking at January for much snow on the ground here. Did not expect two years in a row of near nothing, but we could be heading there. Did not expect it last year either, so there you go.
The atmosphere is so loaded right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the snow we get is one the models do not show until within 72-96 hours.
Agreed, but the catch is it appears primed for the north and south of us. Dome back?
Let’s hope not. 12z Gfs keep the weekend system which would be a decent snow maker for the whole state. It’s been consistent show My this the last few runs but until the Euro shows it I’ll take it as being consistently wrong
Thanks Chris, We had a great Christmas and I hope all of you did also. The sunshine most of the day was most welcome along with the early snow flurries. With the weather models the way they have been behaving this past month I no longer trust. For now on for the rest of this winter I am going to use my own logic and observation. Don’t worry, I will not post my weather findings. I learned my lesson earlier this year. Here’s to a safe and great day after Christmas.
Well, there you have it. It’s too cold to snow now with the cold pushing everything south. No worries, it will warm up to rain after this current cold snap. Sigh. Rodger in Dodger
The morning GFS run has a great snow event for the entire region Dec 31-Jan 1. As always, nearly a week away though. Rodger in Dodger
Looks like our Southern stream/GOM has went on vacation..Pity with all this cold air..Good setup gone to waste..Might of been riding the fence but will take warm/rain any day over cold/dry..
It would likely be an ice storm anyway, better not to have the gulf moisture now.
Worst kind of cold is wasted cold. I think we are going to have more than our share of it. Doesn’t look like anything but DOA clippers.
I think a new term has begun on this blog ‘ Wasted Cold Air’.
We had a pretty little dusting of snow yesterday morning, that made everything so nice. We live on the north side of the mountain so these below normal temperature the little dusting will be around awhile.
Thank you Chris for the information and to everyone else that adds to it. It makes a great place to stay caught up on what’s going on.
At least the season is still in its early days. Sure, most of us are discouraged by the numerous chances and misses we have had in December, however, historically most of us see little to no chances of snow until January anyway. As for myself, I’ll be glad to see even one 1″ snowfall which is quadruple the amount most of us saw all season last year (and is roughly 10 times more than my yard saw). Haven said that, I wont be surprised if 1-3″ total or less in some KY locations is all most of us see this winter.
When I read this all I saw was COLD! lol
http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=snku_acc&rh=2017122612&fh=168&r=us_ov&dpdt=
Eye candy from 12z gfs
The GFS has been consistent with phasing the New Years Eve/Day storm. The Canadian has the storm but no phasing and the Euro basically has nothing. So here we go again with the models fighting like brother and sister. The storm really won’t get sampled till sometime on Friday so all models are at guess status.
Only sure bet is the cold even without a snow cover it’ll be nasty cold. Add in a snow cover your talking brutally cold and getting really close to record level cold.
O BOY 9 inches of snow today for my county !!! LOL eye candy is right. These who control the GFS models are just making all of this up. The westerlies are at play is one reason we are not receiving major snowfalls during are coldest periods, only the northeast and those areas east of the Great Lakes are getting the real winter. Blame it on La nina.
Maybe late next Autumn 2018 we will develop a weak El nino. This is when we get the real winters with the major snows.
The snowdome in Kentucky is alive and well. If we don’t get some snow soon I’m going to be disappointed. Last winter sucked!
There is no such thing as a dome.
Very true