Good Tuesday and Happy Election Day. Our severe storms are now rolling east of the area, with gusty winds and colder temps settling in. The temps later this week will really begin to drop as early season arctic air invades the country. As a matter of fact, several shots of arctic air are on the way for the next few weeks. These shots may also bring the first snows of the season to some areas.
Winds today remain VERY gusty and may hit 35mph or higher at times. Skies become partly sunny with a leftover shower moving through…
A weak system zips across the Tennessee Valley on Wednesday and may throw some chilly showers into the state. Highs range from the middle 40s to low 50s.
The next system is a stronger one and will move across the area Thursday into Friday. Rain develops ahead of this system, with gusty winds and a temp crash behind it. That may spit out some snowflakes, especially on a northwesterly wind flow by late Friday…
The GFS does show some flakes getting into the bluegrass state…
The Canadian does too, but in a different area…
That sets the stage for a very cold weekend with highs on Saturday struggling to get to 40 in many areas. Gusty winds make it feel even colder.
The next system has even colder air pushing in into early next week. The models go back and forth on just how big of a storm system this push of arctic air can help crank up. The latest GFS is pretty progressive, but shows periods of light snow and flurries…
The prior run had a much strong system…
The European Model is close to having a big storm, but misses the connecting flight to “phase” town. It still brings a snow maker in here…
That’s some incredibly cold air for this time of year and it even opens up the lake effect snows all the way into our region!
I can’t help but think this is a warning shot for the winter ahead. Some major heavyweight winter analogs have been showing up on my set list, but I wanted to see how they looked in November before giving them a serious look. Well, they are serious. 😉
I will have another update later today. Make it a good one and take care.
Still, even if we only see a dusting, I am excited for pre-Thanksgiving snow anyways as this only happens every so many years! Even in the higher elevations of SE KY, the average first snow is after December 1st☺. I have seen some years where Harlan (in the valley) doesn’t receive first snow to after Christmas!
I finally broke the 60″ mark here at my place in Valley Station.
I am getting close….at 58.39 and still have about an hour to go in Harlan for this event. Event total so far is 1.45 but still rapidly rising as rainfall rate is over an inch per hour at the moment. I probably will reach 60 inch mark during the Thursday/Friday storm, if we get an inch during that one as WPC currently predicts.
Was the forecast a bust? Only reason why I’m asking is this past weekend most meteorologists were forecasting a significant severe weather outbreak and a significant damaging wind event? The severe weather reports seemed more isolated than widespread.
The SPC dialed back the risk areas yesterday as opposed to the enhanced risk on Sunday. I think once the risk is out, some mets don’t dial it back. Ratings.
IIRC, the heart of this outbreak was forecasted all along to be from northern Mississippi into southern Tennessee. But as Feederband touched on, areas farther away (including parts of Kentucky) had their risk factor reduced. Quite a long list of damaging wind events have shown up on storm reports from NWS offices in Tennessee. A small handful of tornado reports have come in from at least five states, including an EF2 in Rutherford County TN which unfortunately left one fatality 🙁 . I saw a few Tornado Warnings in southern Kentucky, but I’m unaware of any touchdowns.
Thankfully, this outbreak (which extended into today’s elections) was nothing like the “Super Tuesday” election day tornado outbreak of February 2008 which had several EF3s and EF4s in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas and smaller twisters in other states….not to mention a crippling snowstorm for northern states like Wisconsin.
EF-1 tornado yesterday in Adair county KY was confirmed by the NWS. I believe that was the only confirmation, however I do believe the NWS is still checking on another possible tornado touchdown by Mammoth Cave.
Beat me to it! Apparently the Edmonson County (perhaps partly into Hart County) track remains unconfirmed.
Just read that the Adair tornado left a brief Tornado Debris Signature (TDS) on radar. Before the dual-pol upgrade of NWS Nexrad and other radars years ago, “uni-pol” radar could only pick up debris from the strongest tornadoes.
Add a pair of EF0s, one in Edmonson County, the other in Marion County. So three tornadoes in Kentucky, at least within the jurisdiction of NWS Louisville.
KY is now one of six states to record a relatively small number of twisters from this storm system.
I am still about over 2 inches from reaching the 60″ rain mark for the year. The southeast wind had really been cutting in to the rain totals recently in my WV area. That tends to happen more the further we get into Fall and Winter.