Good Tuesday, everyone. Snow showers and freezing drizzle have combined to cause quite a bit of black ice across central and eastern Kentucky. This is creating slick travel conditions early today, so be cautious if you’re out driving or even taking a walk.
After we get through this latest round of winter weather, a lot of rain and high winds are on the way into the weekend. I’ll get to that in a bit, but let’s kick things off with the current round of wintry weather.
Snow showers and flurries will continue on and off today, with additional hit and run light coatings. Again, travel conditions are pretty bad in several areas this morning. The slick roads have been highlighted on this very site for days now, but it appears some officials were caught off guard.
Track the Tuesday flakes…
Hamburg Area from WKYT Studio
Lexington
I-75 @ Newtown Pike
Lexington
I-75 MP 127
Georgetown
I-64 at KY-801
Near Morehead
I-64 MP 97
Winchester
Mountain Parkway @ MP 36
Near Pine Ridge
Florence
Covington
Louisville
Highs today are likely to stay in the upper 20s for many areas, with a wind chill deep in the teens at times.
Wednesday is another cold day with leftover flurries early across the east. Highs are back in the 30s.
As the cold eases on Thursday, a weak system moves in from the west with light precipitation. This may start out as a period of sleet before going over to rain. The NAM is even hinting at a touch of freezing rain in the north…
From there, it’s game on for a VERY wet and windy setup from Friday into early next week. 3 systems roll across our region bringing heavy amounts of rain before the third one bringing winter back in…
The system from Friday night into Saturday is getting more and more of my attention. Not only will it bring torrential rains our way, but it may also spawn a few strong storms and high winds. Wind gusts of 50mph will be possible…
Rainfall numbers from Thursday through Tuesday may average 1″-3″ in much of the region. The GFS has some 5″ amounts…
These numbers would mean we absolutely shatter numbers for the wettest year on record in many cities.
Once we get rid of these systems, it’s back into a very cold pattern that will throw additional snow chances our way next week into the middle of December.
I will have updates later today. Have a good one and take care.
3.5 inches of rain for my local area in southern WV is definitely not needed right now. We have been soaked all year long. And as bad as it has been here, many places east of me have been blasted even worse. And now they’re saying 3 more rounds? We just cannot take anymore rain! It’s as simple as that!
3.5 inches more of rain, and 3 more rounds of it, with thunderstorms for 2 of them? We have been waterlogged the whole year. And as bad as it has been for us, most places east of us have been blasted even worse. We just cannot take anymore rain right now! It’s as simple as that!
Yep….this is just the beginning of what I believe will be one of the highest winter flood threats in many years to come. Not that it technically works this way, but we literally have already have received a good chunk of 2019’s rainfall early due to exceeding 2018’s average annual rainfall back in September….lol☺ Now, we have no vegetation in the growing season to more quickly absorb excess soil moisture! Plus, we normally have a dry fall going into December but not this year!
Yikes!
Terry, If all this plays out, my county of Taylor will easily top 70 inches of rain before the year is out. Unreal, this weather pattern will have to end sometime and then we will start the drought talk ?
Can we all say? Rain and lots of it followed by backside flurries and few of them.
What I see is the same, and would say the opposite….after the short cold /flurries, back to the warmer rain pattern!
Because it looks like this week cold Monday,Tuesday and Wednesday (3 days) then warmer with rain on Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday (4days). I guess I’m waiting for this harsh winter weather.
Yeah, my local tv station in WV just forecasted highs of 64, 68 and 66 for this coming Saturday thru Monday. That don’t look much like Winter.
Jimbo, we need to get the polar jet (- ) and the subtropical jet (+ ) to combine over the southern plains to give all of Kentucky and West Virginia a good deep snow cover followed by a good bout of deep Arctic air that will last more than a couple of days. This may happen sometime next month, if we can only form a weak El Nino jet stream ? This is what happened in December 1969 and continued through March 1970. A White Christmas and a White New Year 1970. Have not seen one since.
Back in the early or mid 90″s don’t remember the year we had a white Christmas and New Year the same year.
Now, you got me started on past White Christmases. I experience my first White Christmas in 1962 and the second in 1969- 70 ( New Years Day ) and the last one was the deepest in 2004 when it snowed two feet in Evansville, Indiana. It is very rare to be lucky enough to have a White Christmas and a White New Years Day in the Ohio Valley. I have never seen any big snows in December and January since I move to these Kentucky hills eleven years ago. In 2015 and 2016 we had some big snows, but they occurred in February and March. One of those storms topped 28 inches !
Here in Bardstown, I believe it was around the late 90’s-I want to say ’97-’98, because on New Years Eve 98, our old furnace had been acting weird for about a month, and my then-hubby’s boss had called earlier that evening and after talking to him, about 5 min’s later, the FIRE DEPT. showed up???!-I’d been telling him how I’d felt kinda “high”, etc, so he’d called them, and sure enough, the CO level was UNREAL the minute they came through the door! It was snowing/sleeting that night, and really cold, and they had LG&E come out & lock the furnace down and air out the house. We had a new furnace put in on New Years Day and I think we had like 3-4″ snow on the ground. Ironically, (Not living in same house) I’ve got the heat dude coming today because experiencing the SAME thing.
Yep the mets here in central ohio said again last night that its looking like a record warmth comming in December and January.said only a couple clod shots and very little ❄.
That’s what the Old Farmers Almanac is predicting for most of the country. They may be right or may be really way off the beam . As I said in an earlier post ” this is going to be a very difficult forecasting. ” Moderate snow falling right this minute in my area.
Its just laughable at this point, Some farmers couldn’t even get the fall harvest in. We desperately needed some dry out time before cold/wet winter set in.
I have to agree, this rain is really ridiculous. And been bad for the farmers. My paddocks are a mess and my horse has been standing in mud for weeks. I’m sure I’ll have to seed next year.
Our significant snows sneak up within a week or so, before we even see it. Not much to do with outlooks. I’m not too sure on thr warmth projections. Seems colder is a more likely bet this winter, with some decent several inch events. Big snows almost are always within a week before we see the chance and more times than not, don’t listen out. Kentucky’s location and topography are to blame, and not the mets 🙂
pan out. Not sure how listen got there…..
Think about how crazy this is:
Since record keeping in Lexington…. 4 of the top ten wettest years on record have been in the 2010’s. 2011 (wettest) 2018, 2013, and 2015….. and you don’t have to go too far back there’s 2004, then there’s 1997….all in the top 10.. That’s crazy.
anyway – I hope it’s not a warm boring winter. This winter may be different than the rest because I never remember this type of weather in November
Don’t like what the models are showing out in the Pacific..Yikes..Hopefully there wrong and the death nail is gone by Christmas..If not could be a long boring winter with gentle warm breeze’s from the west..
Chris did nail down that it would snow showers / flurries into tuesday for central and east…Shoot look on the radar and its snow shower way to the west as well!!
I’ve noticed that the long range models have been switching from cold to warm and back and forth almost every day….its nuts…I will say this, we have almost an inch on the ground here in greenup with a moderate snow shower going on now
LOL!!! The NWS issued a Winter Weather Advisory until 1PM. Not sure why my county is included unless the new basis for a WWA is completely dry roads sprinkled with the 10 ice cream sprinkle sized snow pellets that have fallen today!!!!!! 🙂 🙂