Good Monday to one and all. A big change is blowing across the bluegrass state today and this will slap us back into reality. A 30 degree temp drop will be noted today as a cold front moves through here. Throw a wave of low pressure into the mix and you have the recipe for a little bit of light snow.
Temps will drop into the 30s from west to east today as our front pushes in. A wave of low pressure will develop along this front and increase the amount of moisture spreading into the state. Locally heavy rain will be ahead of this boundary and that may cause some local high water issues. The cold air catches the back of the rain and switches it over to a period of light snow. Heres the GFS from this afternoon into tonight..
The NAM is a little more robust with precipitation amounts in the cold sector and even spits out a grassy coating for many areas…
It will be hard to get anything to stick today because of a wet and warm ground. It may come down fast enough to cover elevated and grassy surfaces for a time.
Snow flurries will be possible overnight into early Tuesday across central and eastern Kentucky. We will need to be on guard for a slick spot or two tonight as readings drop into the 20s.
Looking down the road at our next system. It arrives this weekend and right on cue the models are abandoning this monster lake cutter. They are now taking it eastward across the Ohio Valley and giving us a much colder look. The GFS…
I wouldn’t be surprised to see it get colder in the coming days. There is likely to be a bigger system that tries to blow up early next week and become a high impact event for the Ohio Valley. The latest GFS has the storm, but is in its typical bias form of having it too far east …
I will have more updates later today. Make it a great one and take care.
Many thanks to you, Chris, for all you do.
Agreed! Keep banging out the good work Mr. Bailey! I’m in the public service world and your blog is referenced quite often for planning purposes by my department! I say let the December games begin! At least it’s going to be exciting! I just ran my morning run in a short sleeved shirt and shorts! I’ll come home in jeans and my Northface! Crazy, crazy, crazy!!!!
The last message was posted at 10 am? Boy I hope someones clock is wrong or I’m seriously late for work! 😀
Places like Dallas/Ft Worth, Tulsa, Fayetteville AR are getting a quick burst of snow this morning. It will be interesting to see how much of this will make it to our area.
Also, parts of Louisiana and Mississippi under tornado watch, strong storms firing up. SPC also has Alabama with slight risk of severe wx. Could this steal some energy that otherwise could give us some snow?
Chris said in post couple days ago the blocking would keep ant S/SW storm to hsouth when mentioning one storm model was showing SE/E KY seeing snow.
so we get the blocking /cold aIR but the stormns that CAN bring a good one here will bew pushed to fur south.
then the Blocking will weaken and u see LAKE cutters etc.
this system today ius how winter will go rain,rain COLD AIR trying catch the mositure.
That’s not fair! You are using the last 14 years of actual trend as your outlook. You are supposed to take a big swinging kick at Lucy holding the football… er, I mean the models and then stare stunned at the sky, while laying on your back.
Sure big ice and itty bitty snows are how we roll now, but there is always the chance of a big snow! Lucy, hold that football nice and steady, I’m goin’ in! 😉 🙂
Kick it right through the uprights. Just like Bailey (Dallas) over the Bengals last night. Or will Nancy pull it out for a fake and you end up on your back with rain in your face. We will have an old school storm this year. It is all in the indicies leading up to Jan/Feb.
After reading the posts from last night it seems that there are many followers whom compare the local TV mets forecasts to CB’s blog. The TV mets are paid to provide the general public with an outlook for today/tomorrow and sometimes a week out. They are not paid, and niether is CB, to perform indepth looks at long range forecasts that they have there professional degrees in. CB (ON HIS OWN TIME) keeps all of us, that are interested, informed on what his thoughts are. These posts by CB are not forecasts that are viewed by all. I have been following CB for about three years now and his track record has been way above average (except last year when EVERY major weather outlet missed it) for short and long term predictions. As CB said the transition to winter is upon us and I believe we will have a Winter to rember this season. It will be nothing like last year.
THANKS CB for all your hardwork (unpaid at that). Have a great day
Understand..I was just curious who puts the 7 days forecast out…It just seemed to be in contrast (even in 3 days out) in what Chris was saying on here..I love the blog as well..But I could have said back in July that on Dec. 10 (WINTER WILL BE UPON US)…Oh well, here is hoping for snow!
I’ll be happy to see some flakes in the air today.
ME TOO!!!!
Folks periodically try to point out that talking about an outlook is not the same as a forecast. Given the continued critiques, that effort might be futile.
Keep it real CB…keep it warm!
Through nine days this is the 2nd warmest December ever in Lexington (behind 1998) and the warmest ever in Louisville. Will take a major pattern shift at this point not to face a top 10 warmest December. If that is the case, it will take major cold in Jan & Feb to have a below normal winter.
It is not impossible though. December 1984 was extremely warm. Temps in the 70’s in mid to late December. It was over 60 on 1/1/1985 and then the temp never reached 40 again until Mid February, including two days of -15 or lower.
Great find on the December 84 data. I’ve been working on some research and I found that the December 84 pattern looks remarkably similar to what we’re seeing now (Dec 2012). You are correct, December 84 was warm, but the pattern changed dramatically in January 85 with loads of cold and snow in the eastern half of the US. There were some other years that matched up well on a hemispheric scale as well. I think one of them was 70-71 and I think Dec 78-Jan 79.
MJ…!
You had me ’78-’79… 🙂
GO STEELERS..!
Anyone got any thoughts on the weekend. NWS has southern KY temps back into the low 60’s again 🙁 I was hoping the pattern change to winter would last more than a couple days?
I can remember January of 1985-very cold and some decent snows. We were living outside of Louisville,and the biggest snow we had was maybe 6-7.” but the cold was the headline, seems like Super Bowl Sunday was subzero with a few inches of snow on the ground. And come to think of it, now my memories are coming back. Christmas of 84 was warm and wet, not unlike the days we are seeing now.