Good Saturday everyone. We’ve made it to the first weekend of 2013 and the cold weather rolls on. This impressive cold streak has produced 9 straight days of temps sub 40 degree temps in Lexington. That’s the longest such streak since December of 2010. While we have a warmer and wet week ahead of us… a harsh period of winter is just around the corner.

We are watching a couple of systems to impact the state this weekend. The first will bring some rain or snow showers to some areas later today into the evening. The best chance for these will be across the south and southeast.

Sunday into Sunday evening will see a better chance for a few snow showers and flurries across central and eastern parts of the state. Winds will gust up as temps stay in the 30s for most areas. That will be followed by another windy and cold day Monday.

Temps will really bring to warm on Tuesday as a southwesterly flow kicks in. Temps will soar well into the 40s and we may hit 50. A developing storm system across Texas will throw some clouds our way by the end of the day and the rain won’t be too far behind.

This slow moving storm will work our way by Wednesday and Thursday. The models are slowing this bad boy down and that could mean a lot of rain. Check out the rainfall coming from the latest GFS through Friday morning…

GFSThere will likely be another storm that follows that up for next weekend. That is the system that will introduce a big time winter pattern around here for the following week and beyond. The cold will work into the west and plains states by Friday and Saturday and slowly head east from there. We will likely see it be a slow mover across our region by early that next week and that should set the stage for multiple snow chances.

That may lead much of the country into the deep freeze for the second half of January into February. Check out the brutal cold showing up on the CFS weekly forecasts for later this month…

CFSThe upcoming pattern has a certain “wow” factor to it. But, we have to get through some milder temps and a lot of water next week before we can get there.

I will have another update later today. Make it a great Saturday and take care.