Good Friday to one and all. November is wrapping up and we are ready to dive into the start of meteorological winter on Saturday. The first few days of December will be on the mild side across the bluegrass state, but things could be changing sooner rather than later.
Thanks to all those who played “What winter am I?”. The answer to that question… (insert drum roll)…. the winter of 1995/96. The mild numbers from my last post all came from that blockbuster winter across Kentucky and much of the eastern part of the country. This winter may or may not turn out anything like that one, but I did find a November correlation to that year. Lexington has had 19 days of 32 degrees or below this November and that’s the most since 1995 produced 20. If we look at the numbers since 1970… only 1995 and 1976 featured more November days below freezing.
I don’t know if any of that is a precursor of things to come this winter, but I don’t think you guys realize the amount of number crunching I actually do. (Cue the violin ;))
Speaking of numbers… they are going up over the next several days. Highs today will hit the 50s with a mix of sun and clouds. We will flirt with 60 Saturday under a partly cloudy sky. Moisture will increase by Sunday and this will lead to scattered showers that take us into early Monday. These show up well on the simulated NAM radar:
Temps during this time will likely warm into the low 60s, but clouds and showers may knock those down a bit for some areas.
A cold front enters the picture early Tuesday and this will bring a line of gusty showers across the state. Temps will come way down behind the front, but that won’t last long as it gets shoved through here pretty quickly. Why is that happening? Because the models are now speeding up the change to winter and slam another system in here by next Friday or Saturday.
The overall pattern is in the process of cleaning itself up. The west coast into the Gulf of Alaska looks to become MUCH more favorable in time. Take a look at the deep trough up there this weekend and how it gets replaced by a big ridge…
As that ridge balloons along the west coast, a deep trough is carved out across much of the country. That trough opens the floodgates allowing very cold air from Canada to dive our way. The new Canadian Model is also on board with that configuration by next weekend…
That falls toward the beginning of my December 7th-14 period of change. We’ll see how it all evolves in the coming days.
All of that may be a lead up toward some interesting weather just in time for Christmas. The CFS model says a White Christmas is possible to a lot of people across the country…
I will update things later today. Make it a great Friday and take care.
We loved “playing” your back to the future game. We appreciate your hard work. You are the best!!!
Chris has a new War Chant…..Dec. 7-14..Repeat it with me.. Dec. 7-14
Yep, seems we have a set point. If it does not happen next week and it then becomes the “next week”, we could have a trend like last year and Lucy gets PLENTY of football action.
That said, seems unlikely to have two in a row like last winter. If CB nails the cold drop next week and it hangs around, the models might be more sober than last year. Most we drunk last winter.
It seems that there are now so many jaded and cynical souls, it would take one event to smack us hard to get us to really believe the next one. Sad that that is how it is for snow, but the ice usually gets pegged pretty good.
Not trying to be a weenie, but I just don’t see much hope in December 2012. Hopefully things will change and the pattern will flip, but things certainly smell like 2011-12 right now. The latest ECMWF’s are quite depressing. Bring on the ‘shorts weather’! At least Christmas isn’t about what the atmosphere does or doesn’t do. 🙂
December 7th the day that will live in infamy 🙂
If I’m reading the Christmas snow map correct, that is a whole .5 to 1 inch of snow (wow, how incredible)..seriously though we are 26 days from christmas!
yeah the fact that we are 25 days away means there is room for change in either direction….i’ll be leaning toward the snowier scene.
WSAZ (Chris’ old station) is now predicting a harsh period the second half of December and on into January. Tony also stated that if we got a good snow pack during that time that it would be hard to bust out of that pattern.
That happened in 89/90 where we started getting snow in December and kept getting waves of the stuff due to snow pack.
1993 got funky monkey too.
32 47 43 hmm