Good Thursday, everyone. Our wet and windy weather is behind us and now it’s time to look ahead toward the weekend. It’s a weekend that features our first brush with winter across the bluegrass state. This looks to be part of a much bigger change that can crank some decent winter weather as we move through the rest of the month and into December.

The front dipping in here on Saturday will bring a lot of gusty winds, a big temperature drop and some rain and snow showers. Early in the day, temps are going to make a run at 50 ahead of the front. As the front moves through… readings drop quickly into the 30s. Most of the precipitation is behind the front and that gives us the chance for seeing flakes. The GFS has a nice look for the first flakes of the year…

GFS

In that setup, flakes may fall with temps well above freezing. The same model run even shows this…

GFS Snow

I wouldn’t expect anything to stick if you do get some snow where you live. This is not a big deal, except for it being the first flakes of the season.

Temps fall into the upper 20s by late Saturday evening and drop to around 20 by Sunday morning. Wind chills will be in the teens. Some leftover flurries will be possible early Sunday with afternoon highs in the 30s. Winds will make it feel even colder.

Thanksgiving week starts with clear and chilly temps with a big storm lurking the second half of the week. That should impact our long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Watch for the models to come back around to what they were showing a few days ago with this storm. One of the reasons is the blocking taking place in the eastern Pacific.

I touched on this a few days ago and how I thought that was a primary driver in the pattern of the past few winters. When the EPO (Eastern Pacific Oscillation) Index goes into a negative phase, it’s usually a good indicator of cold and winter weather for the central and eastern parts of the country. Check out the various model forecasts of that index over the next few weeks…

Blocking

Blocking 3

Blocking 2

That doesn’t get much more negative than what’s being forecast. How does that interact with the strong El Nino currently in progress? That remains to be seen, but odds favor the possibility of an active winter setup as we close the month out and roll into December.

Check out the coast to coast frigid air on the GFS as we say hello to December…

GFS 2

I will update things later today. Make it a good one and take care.