Good afternoon, everyone. Confidence continues to increase that a winter storm will impact much of the state late Tonight through Saturday morning. For that reason, we are now in Winter Storm ALERT mode. This is for the potential of significant ice and snow accumulations.

Before we get to the winter storm, we have showers and storms going up our there today. Some of these can put down some heavy rain amounts…

A Winter Storm Watch is out for much of the state, and I expect this to be upgraded to a warning and expanded eastward later today…

I’m keeping my current Call For Ice and Snowfall going, but will likely have to bump up a few spots later today…

The NAM might be the most inconsistent model I’ve seen in a while. It goes back and forth between showing a foot of snow and an inch of snow. Obviously, the NAM is struggling, so we look in other directions.

The GFS is getting a better handle on the precipitation shield…

While still too choppy for my taste, it matches up pretty well with my forecast map. Note the areas different areas of up to 6″ of snow…

Again, that’s too choppy and I expect more of a solid snow swath. That’s what the Canadian continues to show…

Here’s the snow map from that run…

The short-range Canadian model is even beefier with the snows…

In addition to the snow, I am VERY concerned with the ice threat, especially across the west. Up to a half inch of freezing rain may occur in several areas. That would be enough to cause some power issues. Farther east, freezing rain will likely accumulate some before the snows kick in.

The worst of this storm hits western Kentucky later tonight into the first half of Friday. Central Kentucky gets the worst from Friday afternoon through the wee hours of Saturday morning. Eastern Kentucky gets the worst by Friday evening into Saturday morning.

No matter where you are, this is a high impact winter storm for travel.

Frigid temps follow this up for the weekend and I’m close to issuing a Winter Storm Threat for Monday and Tuesday. With arctic air in place, the system diving in from the northwest can put down several inches of snow and create blowing snow…

Back to today’s system, I will have an updated call on WKYT-TV starting at 4pm. Updates on the blog may come at any time today.

Make it a good one and take care.