Good Saturday to one and all. Record warm temps invaded the bluegrass state Friday and a few more records may bite the dust today. This flirtation with March is about to come to an abrupt end on Sunday as a powerful cold front works through. This allows winter to come roaring back and likely sets the stage for some extreme winter weather for much of the country in the coming weeks.

High temps today will hit the upper 60s to around 70 in many areas as winds continue to gust up. We will have a mix of sun and clouds to go along with scattered showers and thunderstorms. Locally heavy rains will be possible with any storm that goes up.

Our cold front works into western Kentucky tonight as a wave of low pressure works along it. This will enhance the rainfall and could lead to local high water issues for a few folks into Sunday morning. That round of heavy rain producing showers and storms will work eastward across the state on Sunday.

The temp map Sunday is going to be awesome to look at. Temps in central and eastern Kentucky will be in the 60-65 degree range into early Sunday afternoon. Western Kentucky will have temps in the 30s at the same time. Those 30s will surge eastward and many areas will record a 30 degree drop in just a few hours.

We could even see the rain end as a little sleet or snow across western Ky Sunday afternoon and evening.

This is where our weather picture runs into a couple of question marks. That cold front will put the brakes on just to our east. Another wave of low pressure should ride northeastward along this boundary late Monday into Tuesday. The trend on the models has been for a wintry event to unfold across parts of the state.

The NAM has been the most robust with this system and produces quite a bit of snow, ice and rain across the state. Here’s what the NAM is showing…

NAM 3

Snowfall through Tuesday Morning…

NAM

Freezing Rain Accumulation through Tuesday Morning…

NAM 2Let me caution you this is only one run of one model and I promise you things will look different as each run comes out. I’m just showing you what the models are suggesting and telling you there is the possibility of winter weather. The maps above are NOT a forecast from me.

The Canadian Model offers support to the stronger solution we see from the NAM…

Canadian

The GFS had this same scenario for several days in a row, then lost it for the past few days. The latest run is trying to bring it back and it may just do that at some point today. The “almost” scenario from the recent GFS isn’t impossible, and a lot will depend on where the front slows down at and how much upper energy cuts off in the southwestern states.

Moral of the story… nothing is even close to being set in stone.

There could be an arctic front dropping in late Thursday or Friday and that would deliver a nice shot of cold and a few snow showers.

While, winter comes back in the week ahead, it’s what’s coming late next weekend into the following week that is getting everyone’s attention.

Basically… the north pole may dive into the eastern half of the United States. Every single model shows this happening in some form or fashion. This is one of those rare times the models actually match up with what the global indices say should happen. Even the GFS has it…

GFS

While, that is likely too extreme, I do think it has the right idea.Β  The Canadian Model introduces the brutal cold with arctic snows..

Canadian 2

I’m on the mend and that means updates will come your way later today. Looks like I’m going to have to teach a refresher course on commenting dos and don’ts. The blog police will be setting up roadblocks through the weekend. Word has it they have some suspects in mind. πŸ˜‰

Have a great Saturday and take care.