Happy New Year, everyone. Bitterly cold temps continue to push into the region and will dominate the pattern for the first week of the new year. Wind chills will reach the danger category on numerous locations, and I’m watching the northwestern sky for snow chances.

That northwestern sky may spawn a snow shower or  a few flurries out there this evening…

Overnight lows head toward 0 or below in the north with 0 to 8 above for much of the rest of the state. Gusty winds will combine to produce wind chills from -5 to -15 on occasion.

The short-range HRRR model shows the dangerously cold wind chills for the first morning of the new year…

The short-range RAP is even colder…

So, let’s look at those model forecasts then look at the Wind Chill Advisory map for our region…

The National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio finally put northern Kentucky and the Cincy area in the Advisory, but left the southeastern part of their service area out. I guess they wanted to contribute to the donut hole created by the NWS offices in Jackson and Charleston, WV.  As of this writing, their ENTIRE areas are surrounded by advisories.

While, wind chills in these areas may not be quite as cold as your neighbors to the west and north, you’re still getting wind chills from the above models that, in some cases, meet their beloved criteria for an advisory. Something to also consider, the models last night and this morning were way underdone with the wind chills. Readings were pushing -5 to -10 at times on the mesonet sites from the bluegrass region into parts of east central Kentucky.

On the flip side… Kudos to the NWS Office in Louisville. They have really been on their game with the Christmas Snow and the bitter cold, going all in on the impact side of things. They put together a great look at just how extreme this cold weather stretch is in our region…

This cold is historic, folks.

Moving on… A major east coast winter storm is likely by the middle of the week, sending more bitterly cold air into our region. That cold can easily rival what we are seeing over the next few days. A couple of systems may try to dive in here from the northwest, bringing snow chances as early as Thursday…

The European model as another system by next weekend…

You’re already seeing the models changing next weekend, showing just how difficult it is to push such a dense arctic air mass out.

While the extreme cold does start to relax next weekend and early next week, this continues to be a VERY cold pattern across our region. The GFS Ensembles show this as far as they can see into the middle of the month…

Once the extreme cold relaxes, we will have a better chance of getting southern systems into the mix for our region.

Make it a GREAT and SAFE New Year’s Eve. Take care!