Good Sunday evening, gang. The pattern ahead of us is a very impressive one that is cutoff crazy. Slow-moving upper level lows will take center stage over the next few weeks and this is ushering in a very wintry pattern for the second half of the month into January.

The first cutoff gets going on Tuesday…

Euro

That’s the system that gives us a nice flow for snow showers Tuesday into Wednesday. The upper level low then lifts to the northeast, but starts to turn back toward the west and south by late week…

Euro 2Think of that system spinning like a bicycle wheel that has spokes spinning with it. If the wheel gets close enough, a few of those spokes could brush Kentucky. If that happens, flakes may fly across the east into the end of the week.

Regardless… that’s a seasonable cold pattern across our region.

The models are then trying to develop another cutoff into the first half of next week. The European Model is probably giving too much separation between a system across our region and one well to our south…

Euro 3

Those two could try to get together for a much bigger system slowly spinning across our part of the world.

All of this leads us into a pattern that has a ton of winter written all over it from Christmas week through January. The GFS Ensembles start Christmas week with a big ridge out west and a developing deep trough across the east…

GFS 3

Ho Ho Ho!

Enjoy the evening and take care.