Good Wednesday everyone. Our long stretch of Indian Summer is kicking into high gear and how do we celebrate such a nice period of weather? By talking about the upcoming winter, of course! I promised to show you guys what some other sources were saying about the cold season ahead of us and that’s what you get today.
Before the winter talk… a quick word about the weather of the next week.
– Sunny skies will rule through the rest of the week into the weekend. Highs in the 70s will be common with overnight lows in the upper 40s to low 50s. An 80 will be possible.
– The tropics have been rather active over the past week or so, but most of the action has been well out into the Atlantic. Something will try to fire up closer to home this weekend into early next week as a system cranks near Florida. This may then wander into the Gulf and some of the models suggest it may throw some rain our way into the middle of next week. Just a heads up on that as of now.
Let’s talk about the winter ahead. I put out some early thoughts about the winter ahead with a post back in early September. Now, let’s see what some other weather sources have to say.
Here is the latest December-February temp and precipitation forecast from the Climate Prediction Center…
That’s not so much of a forecast as a probability outlook. Still… they usually paint the country warm, so it’s a start to see them dipping into the crayon box and using some other colors.
The folks at Snow Day have a winter forecast that lives up to their name…
Last, but not least is a outlook from some forecasting service called Firsthand Weather…
I can’t vouch for the forecasting abilities of any of the above outlooks. But, they are always fun to look at and nothing gets things spiced up more than some winter weather talk. 
My official winter forecast comes out in November and I am once again toying with the idea of a winter meet up or conference. Thoughts?
Have a great Wednesday and take care.
Select Page
Hey Chris, you know everyone is up for a get together! 🙂 What does NEXT week look like temp wise, it’s our fall break and was wondering how to plan things. Thanks a bunch! 🙂
A winter conference sounds fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what scares me about those forecasts at least for us in southern ky… it SMELLS like a winter where ky is the MAJOR FENCE ZONE where northern ky gets hammered with snow and southern ky..gets SLUSH PUPPIED TO DEATH!!!…blah..i hope not!!!
Watching the white stuff fly in Yosemite CA.
Won’t be long before we start looking at our own regional webcams for snow.
http://www.yosemiteconservancy.org/webcams
How about just a weather conference…for those of use who don’t like winter.
Yes! Winter conference sounds awesome! I need an idea of how many snow days to plan for 🙂
Accuweather.com has already put out their winter outlook and it has Kentucky in the middle of having more icestorms this year then snow. Any thoughts?
Seems like a plausible forecast. It appears that they are taking the southern plains drought that has been keeping a upper level ridge nearly in place across that area. Remember, long term droughts do feed back to the atmosphere. With a mid level ridge being that close to us, it will be hard for the polar jet to dip further south. The net result could be that the subtropical jet aligns itself across the Ohio Valley for a portion of the winter resulting in above normal precipitation and normal to slightly above normal temps.
To MJ’s point, from a very unscientific angle, this fall so far feels to me a lot like the fall of 1993 (this weeks’ great weather notwithstanding), which I remember most notably for producing a record low temperature of 30 at CVG on September 30th.
That said, the resulting winter was pretty brutal with of course the massive January “dusting” and record cold, but it also had two ice storms as well in Lexington that were not fun.
Not sure if Chris is looking at 1993 as one of his analog years…if so then, hmmm….