Happy Wednesday, everyone. 2013 is off and running on a cold note across the bluegrass state and that’s a trend that will carry us for a while longer. The stormy pattern we’ve been in will take a bit of a break, but signs of the next wave of storms and cold are showing up down the road.
The numbers are in for 2012 and the history books will never be the same. Louisville and Bowling Green recorded their warmest years on record. Lexington came up a bit short, but managed to make it to the number 2 spot on the warmest years list. What makes all this even more impressive is how cold the fall was. It managed to crank the top ten coldest falls on record for a few cities.
Have I mentioned extreme is the new normal?
Temps won’t be extreme this week, but will continue to run below normal. Highs today will reach the upper 20s to low 30s. A mix of clouds and sun will be noted.
A few weak systems will drop in from the northwest over the next several days. The first arrives later Thursday and Thursday night with a few clouds and possible flurries. That will bring a reinforcing shot of cold air for Friday. The next system moves in by Sunday and may have a touch more moisture with it. A round of snow showers and flurries will be possible.
The pattern will relax some as we go into next week. We may even warm it up for a few days as the pattern reloads for the middle and end of the month. That’s when we are likely to see things turn very wintry around here with cold and snow chances galore.
The models are already going in that direction by the weekend of the 12th as they carve out a deep trough across the central and eastern part of the country…
Notice the bookend blocks showing up. One up the west coast and the other nudging into Greenland. That may try to become a fairly stable pattern that keeps our region locked into the cold with frequent storm chances as the southern branch of the jet stream fires up.
Have a great Wednesday and take care.
Bring on the over performing clipper systems.
2010/11 was great for over performing clippers. …almost every night for 2 weeks. About 2 inches a clipper really piled up.
Where was that? Not on my deck or backyard… (Madison county).
Laurel County…that year we were in the part of the state that annoyed all others.
i don’t remember that for Knox
Being on the CHILL!
that would be nice!!!! Let us get in a week or two at school and then give us some SNOW DAYS!!!!!!!!!! First day back and i am ready for days off!!!! LOL
Accuweather’s Henry Margusity’s video today says no big cold until February and mostly warmer than average temps for January 🙁 🙁
key word is Accuweather 😉
Do you help Chris out ?
Accuweather has been way off for the past 2 months. Not even close.
Going into hibernation now. Miserable cold rain for New Year’s and now nothing but nasty frozen mud everywhere. I don’t have much use for cold unless there is snow. I looks like things will be boring for the foreseeable future — just cold.
Frozen mud means the dogs can’t drag it in the house. I’m all for that.
Good for dogs, bad for horses.
And goats. Our horses are grazing far from where they made all the giant holes, but that’s where the goats like to hang out during the day. It’s a nice vantage point and they can bask in this rare sunshine. They are tiptoeing around giant mounds of frozen dirt and deep holes.
NWS is calling for temps in the 50’s by one week from today, so it probably will snow Sunday and melt Monday!
The GFS shows cold down the road as does the CFSv2, but the Euro weeklies suggest winter may be over. These past ten days were the only real extended bit of winter we’ve had since January of 2011. I doubt we’ve seen the end of winter, but it just gets tougher and tougher to get cold winters.
I don’t buy that man is making the climate warmer, but I do see merit to climate change. After all, the climate’s been changing since the day the Earth began. And at least for the last decade, the major influence on our weather seems to have been the southeast ridge. The cold just hasn’t been able beat it back.
The winters of 2002-03, 2009-10, and 2010-11 were reasonably cold, but what ever happen to the major arctic outbreaks. January 1985, December 1989, January 1994, and February 1996 all saw days in Louisville that were either below or right at zero all day. Since then, we’ve not seen anything close. We’re long over due, but maybe not any more.
Winter has changed, and changed big time. It’s something that’s never discussed here on the blog as it usually turns political real fast. However, I feel this is a natural climate pattern shift or cycle, however you like.
Talk to any of the older folks, they can tell you of winters where snow was on the ground for weeks at a time and ponds/creeks would freeze over for an extended period of time. I can remember our ponds freezing every winter up until the late 80’s. The exception being the Winter of 94.
Unfortunately, most people cannot seperate Climate change and manmade. I too believe that the climate is changing and that there are some things we need to be more mindful of.
I remember reading a few years back that the average snow line has been moving northward 10 miles a year for so many years or something like that. I have lived here long enough to see that our winters are milder and that it seems that the ohio river is the dividing line. Plus, you cannot have the warmest years on record without affecting winter in some form.
We used to play ice hockey with brooms on the frozen creeks. I remember seeing ice on the Big Sandy River for weeks at a time. Been a while since then though.
I think these things are cyclical, and I think the earth is warming but I think the arguing over whose fault it is is pointless.
Either way, I think our bigger snows are going to be outliers. We will still get them, but our odds are going down.
I think the problem was the name “Global Warming”. A more accurate description is climate change, and that’s how it should have been presented in the very beginning. We DO need to pay attention and take action. More and more storms like Sandy and Irene will hit the northeast and they simply can’t handle it. The ice caps are melting, the seas are rising, and we are having top ten warmest years ever every single year. This “extreme is the new normal” is uncharted territory. Very scary.
I think the more proper term is “liberal money grab”.
Guess what, if you live along a coast, hurricanes happen. Just because NYC and Jersey have been lucky and not been hit doesn’t mean man made it happen. It gets hot, it gets cold, it gets wet, it gets dry. Many of the records being broken have stood 100+ years. Was global warming the blame for a 90 degree high in May 1889? Nope.
Off the soapbox now.
That would fly except that areas southwest of us are getting snow and records of snow they normally would not. Arkansas and Texas areas are an example. Big snow have even pummeled Tennessee several times in the past 15 years.
For whatever reason, Kentucky has become the fence (Fencetucky) for winter. Please keep in mind we had a brutal cold winter just a few years ago. 15 years a mere blip in the total weather history.
It is what it is and defined by the resultant trend. I still bank on this winter will be an average of the last two, so a winter “1.5” as far as temperature. Some folks already know my stance on big snow chances, so will not rehash like I already did with everything else 😉
To my little mind, the trend is the most powerful array of data we have and that is why I do not buy into the models for outlooks (they are wrong). The models have to actually be correct to bust the trend. Still, the actual forecasts from a weighted average using the main models have been pretty good. The bias is folks tend to focus on the models with the most snow and use those as standard.
Using one model will almost always get you in trouble. The truth is usually somewhere in between several.
Note I am differentiating between a forecast- two days or less in and an outlook. Outlooks as far as snow are almost always fairy tails and only create false hopes. If you like snow, that its.
While we’ve suffered from a lack of significant cold and snow, we’re not alone. Check out this from the NWS in Chicago: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=lot&storyid=90812&source=0
Wait, I thought the Thursday’s event was “looking to be an over producer”?, now it’s to be nothing measurable?
Just looked back through the blog updates and don’t see that anywhere? Just see thoughts that it would be a glancing blow.
Interesting discussions from Jackson NWS and Morristown NWS regarding the system this weekend, both seem to be thinking quite the opposite on affects.
Morristown thinking more in line with Chris’ latest tweets.
Perhaps CB should start qualifying his tweets and posts with: “Except” the bottom NE diagonal half of the state 😉
You can tell that when the Heat Miser turns things up into the 50’s the comment section goes way down. 88 posts yesterday & 20 something today. Boo to you Heat Miser!
Sounds like winter returns after next week, so a little warmer weather for a few days won’t bother me, need to put the Christmas decorations away for another year anyway!
The catch is I still do not see anything suggesting middle Kentucky is not the fence for the next few systems. Looks like the same best chance places of the past few events is the same here. Folks may need to set up residence in Louisville or better yet the Florence area for good snow chances.
Seems the dome has elongated to a more correctly termed fence. Think about it folks- EVERY system so far has had that profile. Ride 64 north and AVOID the Kentucky river.
Trend results are powerful stuff and very objective.
Speaking of outllooks, though for general snow results they tend to be wrong, they have not been as far as the path of the systems- if taking the average. They just suck in general at amounts forecast.