Good Saturday everyone. Old Man Winter is coming on strong over the next week as we have several snow systems coming our way. I’m tracking three storms that will impact our weather during this time. The one getting the majority of my attention comes Christmas Night and Wednesday. My confidence has increased enough to shift the blog into WINTER STORM THREAT mode.

More on that storm here in a bit. We have a system moving in for Christmas Eve that we need to talk about.

Clouds and a light shower or two will increase on Sunday. The air across northern Kentucky may be just cold enough for a bit of a mix. A weak area of low pressure rolls eastward on Christmas Eve. This will tug down colder air behind it and the light rain during the day may end as a period of light snow and flurries in time for Santa. You can see that well on the GFS…

GFS

Temps by Christmas morning will be in the mid and upper 20s with highs in the 30s. That brings us to the Winter Storm THREAT Christmas Night and Wednesday. A storm will develop across the western gulf region and head northeast. We are likely to see a lead low head into the Tennessee Valley before transferring energy to the primary low across the Carolinas. That storm will then lift to the northeast along the coast.

The above scenario is actually shown nicely by the GFS…

GFS 2

That doesn’t mean every aspect of that model run is exactly correct, but I do think it has the right overall idea. If we strictly take that run as the gospel (and I’m not at all), this is what it shows for snowfall…

GFS Snowfall

It also features a period of freezing rain…

GFS 5

Again… the placement of the axis of snow and ice will change with each run and you should NOT take those maps to heart. I’m showing them to illustrate the possibilities. The GFS Ensemble mean doesn’t bring the lead low as far north and shows a colder scenario for the entire state…

GFS 3

The new European Model is similar to the GFS, but appears to be a bit farther east with the heavy snow axis…

Euro

While I feel confident this winter storm will have a big impact on the weather here in Kentucky, I cannot tell you the impact it will have where you live. That will have to be ironed out as we get closer to the event.

By the way… I already have my eye on the next possible threat coming by next Friday or Saturday.

I will have updates later today. Have a great Saturday and take care.