Good Thursday, folks. It’s a full blown Winter Storm THREAT for the coming weekend as a messy/snowy system rolls into the region. The THREAT simply means there is the potential for several inches of snow to impact parts of the region, especially the northern half of the state.

Before we get to that system, our day is starting with snow showers across central and eastern Kentucky. Light accumulations are being noted, causing some slick travel conditions. A few delays or cancellations are very possible as this action develops on a northwest wind…

I made a map last weekend that outlined our northwest flow event for this week. A cold northwest wind off Lake Michigan is a snow shower and flurry maker in our region.

This is the opening act to our weekend winter storm. I’m still rolling with this general theme…

Again, all of that is subject to be moved a little farther north or south with future updates today and Friday.

Here’s a breakdown of how things stand:

  • This is a Friday night through Sunday night event that may actually include 3 different waves of precipitation.
  • The first wave arrives from west to east late Friday evening into Saturday morning and is mainly in the form of snow. This likely delivers accumulations to areas of western, central and northern parts of the state. Some of that may make it into the east and southeast.
  • That Friday night/Saturday morning setup has a chance to overachieve.
  • There may be a lull in precipitation for a time Saturday afternoon and evening, with mainly rain falling across the southern half of the state. That rain line may get as far north as the Interstate 64 corridor for a time.
  • As the second low passes to our southeast Saturday night and early Sunday, the next wave of precipitation really kicks in. This may still be in rain form across the southern half of the state, with snow across the northern half.
  • A third, weaker, system develops Sunday night into Monday with light snow across central and eastern Kentucky.
  • Given the fact this will be a roughly 3 day event, snow depth may never actually match snowfall. I haven’t even mentioned any kind of totals at this point, but should have a First Call For Snowfall around noon or so.
  • Moral of the story, the farther north you go in the state, the better the chance for several inches of snow. The farther south, that potential goes way, way down.
  • NONE OF THIS MEANS YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A LOT OF SNOW ON THE GROUND WHERE YOU LIVE. 🙂

Let’s do a quick check of what the various computer models are showing. The European Model keeps spitting out a decent hit for much of the region, with the emphasis on the northern half of the state. Here are two different snowfall maps from the same run. One uses the standard 10 to 1 ratio while the other uses the Kuchera ratio…

10-1

Kuchera Ratio

Keep in mind those are snowfall numbers through Monday.

The Canadian Model is in very good agreement with the European…

The NAM is a funky model with snow setups like this because it loves to overdue warm air advection, which leads to anomalously high precipitation totals. The run only goes through Sunday morning, but fell in love with north central Kentucky…

Again, the NAM is VERY likely overdoing things and is the model voted most likely to have wild swings from run to run. 🙂

That brings us to the GFS, which seems to be having issues of the opposite kind. It continues to run much drier with this storm than every other model. It’s snow shield looks undercooked in all areas on the map…

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So, the European and Canadian Models are very similar to one another, while the American models look nothing alike. Maybe that whole government shutdown thing really is impacting the American models?

I will have another update later today, so check back. Until then, have a good one and take care.