Good Wednesday, folks. A light snowfall is greeting many areas of the bluegrass state to start the day and that’s creating some slick spots on area roads. From here, it’s time to start putting all our attention into the weekend winter storm potential that is increasing a bit.
Let me begin with the rounds of light snow working across Kentucky early today. This is putting down light accumulations from a coating to 1″ in most areas. Local 1″-2″ amounts may show up in some of the heavier streaks, but those are rather localized.
Here’s a look at the Winter Weather Advisory to start the day…
Another weak system dives in here late Thursday into Thursday night. This should have a band of light snow with it, and some light accumulations are possible…
As far as the winter storm potential is concerned for the weekend and early next week, with each passing day, confidence increases of some kind of impact on our weather. If you’re a regular reader, this is a storm signal we have been talking about on the blog for more than a week already. The signal is the easy part… pinpointing the details is the hard part.
Let’s begin with the area of greatest potential. This is a map I put together for WKYT before the latest computer model runs…
That’s a rough outline that will be adjusted several times in the coming days.
As expected, the latest models are beginning to shake off their respective biases and are coming more into line with one another. The European Model is ridding itself of the convective feedback issues and is now showing a farther north and west storm system with a big hit on our region…
That’s a slow-moving storm system that would last from Saturday through early Tuesday. The end result…
The average snow map from the GFS Ensembles has been hinting at a more widespread and farther north solution for days now. The latest run is no different…
The most consistent operational model has been the new version of the GFS. It has had this similar solution for days now with very few hiccups…
The GFS is finally coming around to this same look…
The Canadian has it too…
What is the takeaway from where we are right now? It’s looking more and more likely that a winter storm will have an impact on Kentucky’s weather. The extent of that impact remains to be seen and I’m still not sure where that greatest impact winds up. That’s going to be my focus of the next few days.
I will have updates later today and can hopefully get a little more specific with this weekend system. In the meantime, here are your tracking toys to start the day…
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
E-town
I-65 MP 36
Near Bowling Green
Enjoy the day and take care.
Still a delicious look but just a little less sweet in far SE KY. It is just too early, in my opinion, to already be shifting NW with the models for a good hit do an here. I am not yet satisfied that I don’t get cheated here in Harlan watching Central/Northern KY still the goods while I get mix and rain☹….Plus the amount of arctic air seems about too limit this weekend, but a very strong low could still overcome this if a better track for far SE KY….just not convinced.
Ignore the 3:00AM grammar…lol
You know the drill Terry.
We have an over achiever in Harlan this morning Andy…this looks to be bigger than any snow last season….not that we had any more than an inch last season at one time, but I am happy with this upper air disturbance….solid inch and still snowing!
Terry, I’m loving your enthusiasm for winter weather and the blog! I’ve followed Chris Bailey since I don’t even know how long. I’m from Pikeville, KY and would tune into WSAZ to watch him then moved to Charleston and continued watching/following and still am to this day. Checking the blog is part of my morning routine, and I’ve been able to relay important storm information to family and co-workers that our locals will sometimes wait until the last minute to put out. I really enjoy our little blog family….even the Debbie Downers!! Haha!
Congrats.
By the way…I am getting clobbered by convective snow showers at the moment. Only a trace of snow had fallen when I typed the first post above but now a solid 1/2 inch with more to come. The actual snow rates are over an inch per hour but the cells only last about 5 to 10 minutes….had two squalls since 2:30….Not bad. I should be asleep but my weather geek nature want allow it☺
Happening status: It’s
Ok, now lets see if this thing can hold right there over the next few days of waffeling, Would love to see that Euro map come to be true, although we all know the EURO is always bullish on amounts early on.
Going to be fun to track! Get some rest CB you might need it.
Seems the system would be a little more north. Wherever the actually bend north takes place could be clobbered.
Hopefully around Knoxville up this side of the Apps! That would be a blockbuster for most of the state.
Thanks Chris, and good morning fellow weather weenies. Looks like we are all in agreement that we would like to see some snow. And that is ok. Id like to see it too. And this morning, we are seeing a little bit. Just enough to make it pretty! As for the weekend, Im still not getting excited until Chris says its a go. I am very optimistic, but we will see., (Cautious!) Have a great Wednesday everyone!
When will those Winter storm watches start going up, tomorrow? Friday?
Better make those grocery store runs now, Friday will be like the apocalypse..
I smell a 2013 storm
Are you talking about this one? https://kyweathercenter.com/?p=8197
Yes
Ahh.The smell of rain..
After around 30 minutes of half dollar sized flakes we have officially exceeded last years winter total of just over a half an inch. lol
2-3.5 inches of snow has fallen in LaRue county. Location location location. 1-2 inches in Nelson county.
This batch of snow heading through Perry and Knott means business, complete whiteout conditions..
Would of like to seen the Nam within range yesterday and seen what crazy snow totals it would of spit out..lol..Anyways some models stayed South and some went North..Maybe they figure it out by tomorrow..
About an inch and a half of snow near Ray, Ohio. No weather advisory of any kind from our own NWS. Wilmington has weather advisories out for the surrounding counties. I wish we had a weather service that actually covered our area.
Barely a dusting in Putnam County WV this morning. I wasn’t expecting much anyway. Terry, I am happy your area did well with this current snow. Hope we all do well this weekend.
Just like to see one storm this winter without mixing issues..Not saying it’s going to happen..Just so much going on in the Northern stream hard to know whats going to happen at the moment..
http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=zr_acc&rh=2018120512&fh=150&r=us_ov&dpdt=
Don’t trust the GFS but at least it’s consistent. Backside snow for December 15th looking good. If only it would verify.
That’s the fun part. Model cherry picking is a tempting thing 😉
Just like when people try to interpret wording in songs, I do it with CB tweets and posts 🙂 CB is wording as a healthy storm…. Seems maybe not as much snow, but still a storm? I mess up Hotel California too, so all is good.
“Healthy” seems more conservative of a description 😉
Bubba your always grasping at air lol always so negative all the time
Nuh uh. I also said we had a 50/50 shot, that was better than our normal chances. Hah! Burned! 🙂 😉
Still there’s to much discrepancy for my taste within the model runs hopefully tomorrow more consistency within all the models.
Hence CB’s cautionary wording.