Good afternoon, everyone. As we continue to deal with bitterly cold temperatures, let’s really start to focus on the potential for a mix and ice coming Sunday and Monday. We’ve set the stage for this for the past several days, and now it’s time to try and hone in a little more.
Here’s the map I made last night, and it still looks to be in good shape…
The models are slowly sensing the low-level arctic air is going to be a tough cookie to scour out, but they continue to overdo the temps. That said, even the poor GFS is showing the mix potential…
Watch for that to trend colder.
The history of the NAM is to better handle low-level cold air, and it appears to be living up to that. It’s seeing the cold hanging tough and that shows up on the winter weather maps. This is not JUST a snow map, this is showing where frozen precipitation falls and accumulates…
The previous run of the NAM was similar, but you can see how the placements change just a little…
The trend for Saturday night is for the bitter cold to linger deeper into Sunday morning. Lows may make it back into the single digits for the 7 straight day to start the year…
The NAM then keeps us at or below freezing through much of Sunday night and Monday. Here’s the 8am Monday temp forecast from the latest run…
Given the frozen ground and road temps well below freezing, this has the potential to become a travel nightmare late Sunday into Monday for some areas. Nothing good will come from a frozen ground and air temps within a few degrees of freezing, and precipitation falling.
If you’re planning to travel late Sunday into Monday, please stay alert to this situation.
After that moves out on Tuesday, temps rebound a little with a modified arctic front moving in by Thursday and Friday. That slows down to our east, allowing for a wave of low pressure to develop along it, that may set the stage for a winter weather maker in the area I’ve outlined below…
I will have the latest update, and a First Call For Messfall on WKYT-TV starting at 4pm.
Enjoy the day and take care.
I love it, “First Call for Messfall”!
Salt truck warning. Going to get slick.
I dislike the words..winter weather maker. …I like the words ..winter snow maker!
I like the words Winter Storm Warning
I can’t find where there is going to be any surface low pressure system on the water vapor loop. You would think by now some precipitation would be showing up in the Texas pan handle, but so far it just shows some warming temperatures. My guess would be by late Sunday a warm front will begin to move north toward the Ohio Valley, the question is where will it stall out. Will it be south of Kentucky or north of Kentucky. Still to early to tell.
According to TWC maps they have it placed well south of TN . Ice for TN and rain for KY i though it odd but it is TWC.
Just found the forecast low pressure system, it’s beginning to take shape in the Texas pan handle and is to move southeast towards Mississippi and then into Florida. If this happens we will be in the clear for Sunday and Monday, but I got this off the GFS model which as we all know has not been reliable so far this winter.
As long as it stalls out south of northern kentucky I’m good.
Thanks Chris. Guess we are now down to watching and waiting to see what develops….. have a great FRIDAY afternoon everyone. We will be hanging on the blog and on KYT for updates!
Looks like rain this weekend and next weekend.
I like your forecast for late this weekend, but we all want a snowstorm for next weekend.
Yep. But, any rain that falls on frozen ground into Monday morning is still called freezing rain, even if is just for a little while.
It would be a slush mix event or almost ankle biter anyway. Cold rain seems the least of the weather evils.
I’m rooting for the NAM precipitation map.
It shows me at 3″, hopefully it is all snow.
3 inches?? lol that would be 30 inches of snow. Don’t worry that won’t happen.. QPF should be around a 1/2 inch
boy do I feel stupid. I thought the numbers meant inches.
Sorry
You are correct, that’s 3 inches according to the NAM map not 30
Yes it’s 3 inches.
That is snowfall forecast on there…not rain totals
http://blogs.wave3.com/weather_blog/2018/01/15-live-blog-nws-conference-call.html. NWS is saying
http://mobile.twitter.com/JohnBelskiWLKY/status/949354320482496512/photo/1
Three days out and all the models are still not in agreement on this weather event coming, sad. I’ll give you all what you want to here: A heavy snow warning for all of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky and Tennessee for late Sunday and Monday. If this was fifty years ago I would believe it, because back then the event would probably occur.
Models agree with the placement of the Low and models agree that a cold scenario will take place. Models just cannot pickup up on the cold air that is trapped at the surface. Despite what some naysayers on here think the WAA advection is going to have a huge fight scouring the artic air at the surface. It’s going to happen but it’s going to be a slow process. Dew points are forcecast to be ridiculously low on Sunday evening which means evaporation cooling is going to happen. This is a night time event so sun angle is not going to be a factor at all. I say maybe 75% of the storm will have a more winter aspect to it especially north of the parkways. Not a major storm but a problematic one.
Ruh Roh! You are starting to have Ice Phobia! 🙂
Your light years ahead of me on all these models. I didn’t understand any of that weather model statement.
Your right about but not these days.
Looks like weather pattern is changing with colder in West and major warm up in East that might last till February.
Thought you didn’t care for Mr Baileys insight? Guess things change, huh?
In response to Josh V comments
lol no i like his blog.. sometimes i feel he stretches a bit like talking about the late next week system… which we know models haven’t preformed this year whatsoever. what they show now for then and what they show then will only change 100 times.
You lie about Chris.
Looking @ KY Mesonet, Soil is frozen down to a depth of 7-9 inches over most of the state and will likely be near 10 inches+ by Sunday morning. Soil below 45 degrees all the way down at 40 inches and still steadily dropping everyday for 2 weeks. It would take days of warm air advection to warm the soil up.
Which ever model predicts rain for us? That’s the one that will be right in my opinion.
This (rain) and not That (ice) if preferred 🙂 Still seems folks in Lexington on north might be in the zone for some ice potential. A similar setup happened around 2003/4. Lexington got spanked and Kentucky river on south got cold rain. Literally less than half a mile between cold rain an ice smack down.
Sometimes Weather draws a line in the sand (ky river sand)
12z Euro *poofs* next week’s threat though I sure hope I’m wrong…and that CB is simply seeing something I’m not. Regardless, definitely not a good model trend day today.
Still…going to keep rooting for TN/KY snow given the vast majority have got nothing but the shaft again this winter. Add in some southern MO & AR…and you got your 2017-18 winter underdogs as we inch toward halftime.
Here in Pennsylvania expecting 4-6 inches of snow with several inches still on the ground and next weekend we might get up to a foot of snow according to local weather here.
All rain for you flooding likely next weekend
I don’t normally say much on here but read this blog daily. I just can’t seem to understand why it does NOT snow in Ky anymore. Snows south and north but not central Ky. Does anyone else find this really odd?
Yes, for now on, I really believe that this weather we have been experiencing will be the norm in Kentucky due to climate change. Does not mean we wont see any more snow events, but they will be few and far between.