Good Wednesday everyone! This is usually the busiest travel day of the year across the country and the same holds true here in the bluegrass state. The title for this blog entry is one that I have used for the past couple of years on the day before Thanksgiving. It has become a blog tradition and since I am a big fan of the movie… I give you this…
One heck of a movie from two of the all time great funny people in this world.
The travel weather on this Wednesday is looking good with temps hitting the low to mid 40s under mostly sunny skies. Temps will be in the 20s to start out the day. Your Thanksgiving looks good as temps crack 50 under partly sunny skies. Good weather for those afternoon football games in the backyard! 
Friday will see a weak cold front settling south into the state. This happens as low pressure passes us by to the south. That low should not provide much in the way of anything for us as the northern stream energy looks to dominate. The front itself will throw some clouds at us later Friday into early Saturday and MAY have enough moisture for a rain or snow shower. Temps will be in the low 40s Friday and near 40 Saturday for highs with lows into the 20s again.
The pattern developing this weekend into next week is loaded with potential as several storms are likely to traverse the eastern half of the country. The first one will be moving our way on Sunday as a strong clipper dives into the Ohio Valley. It is during this time another storm begins to develop across the Carolinas. Let’s use the European model once again as the backdrop for this discussion. It is the most solid model right now in what is a VERY tough pattern for all the models.
SATURDAY
You see our southern storm well to our south heading toward the Carolinas. Now… watch what happens as the clipper moves in for Sunday…
SUNDAY
The clipper heads toward us early Sunday with an increasing threat for wintry weather. Notice the low pressure across eastern North Carolina… now watch what happens when the two systems get together by Monday morning…
MONDAY
Those two team up for a big storm across interior New York state with a trough hanging back across the Ohio Valley. This setup would bring a nice little snow producer around here to go along with a nice cold shot late weekend into early next week.
As I mentioned… there is so much going on with the pattern right now that every model is really going to struggle… especially the GFS. We really have a lot to track next week as another storm or two will be possible before next week is over. It’s important to not get caught up in ONE model run right now as it will likely be one of those patterns to where we don’t get a good handle on each storm until a day or two before.
I have no changes on where this pattern is heading as we go into December. Models will flip and flop so its important to look at the overall pattern and one way to do that is through the indicies. Check these latest forecasts out…
When you see a positive PNA… A negative NAO and EPO… that is screaming one thing…. COLD!!!!
Throw in an active southern jet stream and you can have some REAL fun and games in the weeks ahead!
As usual… I will update later this evening so please check back for the latest. No matter where your Thanksgiving travels may take you… be careful and have a safe trip!
Take care.
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first again?
I’m not discounting the fri night precip ch yet as the new 00z CMC has some light precip for se ky.
I remember that post last thanksgiving and put plans trains and automobiles on my netflix list and really enjoyed it. thanks for the movie tip chris!
Thanks Chris for the update…one good thing about the recent snow and rain is that it helps to reduce the rainfall deficit.
GFS has come back around to a colder forecast in the next 15 days. But the coldest air looks to be 20s through the period…which we already have in place right now. So more of the same I guess… sigh… we need snow to go with this and we don’t appear to be getting any soon.
one of the best movies ever, comedy that is.
then I cry everytime steve martin comes back to the train station and gets him.
then takes him home, it is truly a classic movie.
it aint going to snow, yea a inch here a inxh there, but who cares about that.
watch when a big storm comes our way the ole warm air will win out.
hell maybe reverse phsc will work this year!!!
Thank you for the update, Chris! Nice and cold here in Somerset this morning! We are currently at 19. Looks like turkey day is going to be a good one! Everyone have a GREAT Thanksgiving, and try not to eat too much! 😉
Chris, we’ll be eagerly awaiting your next update for next week and beyond! Take care of that voice.
Hey Chris where’s that winter outlook? Chris I wish you and your family a happy and safe thanksgiving and all you wonderful bloggers out there.
You are right CB, that is one of my favorite movies of all time. Another favorite John Candy movie was The Great Outdoors.
Again, thanks for your devotion to blogging and to the Bluegrass State:)
Am I understanding this right….travel home late Sunday might be tricky?? Cold here this morning. If we are going to have a really cold spell, we need some snow to go with it!
Well its a cold,frosty morning here too.Just across the county line from Coffeelady,sharing her 19* this morning…BRRR. and I’m like everyone else all this cold air and NO SNOW!! its always a shame when that happens,but its quit the tradition around here anymore..:(. WEll anyways hopefully this is the yr. all of that will eventually change.
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I hope everyone has a wonderful,blessed and happy Thanksgiving.We all need to slow down and just realize how thankful we really are,just to be able to get out of bed in the morning. So to my blogging family. Happy Thanksgiving and may God Bless. 🙂
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Chris…Now see if you cant get us a good ole snowstorm rounded up !!…LOL..
WXMAN surely your not using the gfs to predict no accumulating snows in the next 15 days? I am glad the gfs is saying no snow, that model should be fired from the ncep’s it sucks and nam and others ALWAYS blow it out of the water within 84 hours, do you take into account any other models?
Good Morning Chris & Bloggers,
It was a cold 21* down here on the line this morning,but has since warmed up to a sunny 41*.Blue skies and bright sunshine seem to be the order of the day.I want to say Happy Thanksgiving..to everyone here,and safe traveling…May your home be filled with love,laughter,good health,family,& good food! Happy Thanksgiving!!! 🙂
Wrong. The GFS beats the snot out of the Euro every Winter. The GFS does have many problems…but it’s still better than the alternatives.
How many times did the Euro show us getting BOMBED last Winter? 6? 8? 15? And how many good snows actually occured? 1.
Thanks Chris! Goodmorning all! I’m off until Monday, but I’m sure those days will go faster than the ones I spend at work! They always do! Until then, I’m going to enjoy each and eveyone of them! I can’t wait to spend time with my family and to bite into that first taste of turkey! Have a safe and happy holiday all!
why do you have such a negative view of the euro??? it’s about same as the GFS accuracy wise. The GFS had many phantom storm runs as well.
not sure what to make of the 12z gfs for this weekend, i would not get excited over what it shows.
Hi all currently sunny in Pikeville temp 44 degrees heat wave!!!!I hope Chris and all the bloggers have a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!!!Patty enjoy your days off but I know it feels like they fly by.
New GFS coming around to the idea of a MUCH bigger eastern US storm. It is heading toward what many of it’s ensembles have been showing for a couple of days. Yes… it shows snow for us. 😉
Sorry but your # is a little blowed up 😛
If by good snow you think half an inch is a good one then i will give you that;) Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody
I agree with Mitch…I’d like to see one or two more runs of this before biting on it. However, being that it’s inside 192 hours where the GFS operates on higher resolution, it IS very interesting.
IF the GFS is right…Sunday-Tuesday could be a VERY Wintry period for almost all of Kentucky.
Why? My original post explains why. The Euro crashes and burns every Winter far more than GFS does, yet everybody wants to hype the Euro. It makes no sense. I admitted that GFS has major issues too at times.
Thanks C.B. for chiming in on this one!
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now everyone starts biting their nails..lol..and watching every model run…How funny its kinda like watching and waiting for SANTA CLAUS !!!..lol.. YOU GOTTA LOVE THIS PATTERN…
Dang WXman, you should be in politics..! You agreed with Mitch and Chris.
I however will have to side with Chris on this one. If you pay attention to the weather over the past 15-30 days, you would have noticed a very strange occurrence. A favorable “winter pattern” has been setting up rather nicely for Kentucky. I think it will continue and all the signs are screaming COLD,COLD,COLD, at least for the month of December. Now, if we start to see the southern jet stream get active, then we are in for more snow in one year then we’ve had in the last 5 combined… Just my opinion mind you, but the pattern is there.
It’s time to break this southern ridge strangle hold that we’ve been in…
And, if we get the snow like I think we will, it just may last until Christmas with the arctic air that will be flowing our way… Mitch is seeing the same thing I’m, hope we both are correct..!
AMEN…Vinny !!
OH, Man. Here we go again…..
chris: henry at accu-weather is on the same page. always enjoy comparing your
blog with madman. sooner or later the big daddy with hit the bluegrass.
Since the GFS and THE BIG STORM is the current topic, I just found this comment by another forecaster.
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WEDNESDAY 11 A.M.
FINALLY THE U.S. MODEL SEES IT.
The 12z run of the GFS is finally seeing that this is a big storm coming this weekend and early next week. As speculated on here, the correction of coming up the coast may not be good enough, as what started as a storm going east south of Hatteras winds up burying well to the west.
Why forecasts are automated off this model in anything but routine situations is beyond me.
Right you are…November has been very odd in that it has been MUCH colder than normal. However, THAT is the reason why December will be warmer. I would be willing to bet that on January 1, if you compare November’s average temperature to December’s average temperature, you will see that December ends up warmer. The balance in our climate dictates that we will have above normal temps. to even out these cold temps. soon.
I guess i’m in politics to as now i think we thaw out around the 10th or so before the cold returns by dec 15. my chnage in thinking is due to the AO gogin postive for a few days.
most models have an east coast for sun-mon.
accuweather winter forecasst calls for a cold dec, average for jan/feb and above normal snowfall.
I guess i’m in poltics to with the flip-flopping on the long range, we should see a breif thaw around the 10th before the cold comes back by the 15th. my chnage in thinking is due to the AO breifly going postive.
accuweather forecasting cold dec and above norm snowfall.
most models now showing sun-mon system, still need to see 00z models do that before jumping on board.
the cold air mid next week has to have a BIG STORM with it, has too.
Contrary to popular belief, forecasts are NOT automated off the GFS.
12z European continues to show a snow event for central and eastern Kentucky for Sunday and Monday.
points well taken wxman! to be honest i think its fair to say ANY model is going to be fairly innaccurate beyond 3 days and even then as we saw in february 2007 super clipper storm, models hiccuped the night of the event, i would know lexington got a dusting of snow i was in covington and measured 5.5”, i guess in the short term the main issues to look at are radar, but with the febuary 2007 super clipper the models up until the happening of the storm showed lexington getting heavy snow. lets hope sunday system works out i havent seen snow in a while and its getting to me :D!!!
Remember the “surprise” storm of February 1998 that overacheived? Well, the setup on the models for Monday isn’t the same…but it’s not drastically different either. What if? That’s all I’m saying..is what if? Wouldn’t that just be awesome?
Thanks Crystal! I hope you and your husband have a great Thanksgiving! Where will you be spending your holiday?
i’d sell my soul to see a storm like that one wxman lol, in lexington that was the last big one, all of ky except lex area has seen there big one southern ky in jan 03 and western and northern ky in dec 04 and again in march 08 lexington is always so close, this past march however lexington did get a 6” snowfall, fairly out of the ordinary for march i think the average march snowfall for lex is 3 or 4 inches
Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow.. Hope all u have a very good thanksgiving especially you Chris 🙂
12z gfs shows low running right up into ky snow chance would only work if it bombs out and rain changes to snow
With the logic that nov had been below normal temp wise, that dec will be above norm. What about precip? We went months with below average precip, prior to that, we had months with above normal precip; NOT above normal one month and below the next. To me, the patterns seem to last months. Not one month on and one month off.
check list for possible winter system
xanax- check
makers mark-check-
pain pills in case of injury because of breaking something cause it missed- check
but till i see a nice snow, i will say it will warm up just enough.
Well I just got in a little bit of a snow fix this afternoon after coming back from South Bend, Indiana. They still have a nice blanket of snow on the ground from the lake-effect that they’ve been getting lately…
18z GFS: starting to believe.
Probably going to have to put out a special video discussion later tonight for the Sunday-Tuesday Storm threat. 😉
You Go Boy..!!!
starting to get just a wee-bit excited…
18z gfs=happy
maps starting to show something coming our way…! here is the 120hr GFS snow map… 2004 all over again..???
http://204.2.104.196/gfs/WINTER_GFS0P5_SFC_ACCUM-SNOW_120HR.gif
just one run, so lets keep it in prospective, ok…
i just cant get excited yet if models say snowstorm 48 hours or closer then i will be excited
Patty I will be at the nursing home first to see mom and take her dinner, then I will meet up with my husband and best friends that we have spent at least the last 10 christmas eves and thanksgiving with for dinner we spend all holidays and vacations together they are very special what about you and your family are you cooking? Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and Chris and Mj stay safe.
I sense some excitement! I don’t have to (but I do) read Chris’s blog to know what might be in store for us weather wise. All I have to do is to look at the number of comments made and that tells me all I need to know. Hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for. Take care everyone!!!!
2 inches? I Could care less about that Wake me when we get 4+
Andy:
Did you read my last line comment..?
“just one run, so lets keep it in prospective, ok“…
calm down friend, calm down… lol
and then we have this…!!! http://wxcaster4.com/gfs/CONUS2_GFS0P5_SFC_ACCUM-SNOW_120HR.gif
This is eerily similar to the storm of 2004… anyone remember that one..? Louisville west received anywhere from 6-12′, while east of Frankfort received all rain….
Let’s hope we ALL get in on this storm this go around…
So, I don’t know what to think. Are we getting any snow or not? I can’t read the models so I really don’t know what to think. I hope it snows feet not inches!!!!! Everyone have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.
Trying not to get too excited (yet) but boy is it hard not to….
I’ll keep checking in to keep up with what’s going on with this potential system. 😉
Happy Thanksgiving, folks!
Hey Guys,
I love all of this excitment. When do the next module run come out?
as I said for 85 percent of us bloggers we will be just a bit to warm, that been the cycle for last 5 plus years and it will again.
REVERSE/ THE CURSE
VINNY FALL HW 100,000 race 8 at BIG A tomm GOLD TRIPPI get abord we might catch a flyer!!
Hi, Vinny!:)
Remember me??! LOL!!!:)
Yea-recall the Dec 2004 storm quite well, but you FORGOT one itty-bitty thing..maybe didn’t even know..??!..)-While Louisville got about 10-12″ snow, you guys got nada…?!- we here in Bardstown got the darnest(tryin’ to be polite!)dang ICE STORM the afternoon of the 23rd….we lost electricity, we lost our “Cable” (Thank God for DVD Player & Disc’s..lol!) and basically no heat (we’re on Nat.gas, but the furnace has an electric “igniter”..uh-ohh!)It was a MISERABLE 5 days for us…ok..so the electricity came back on Christmas Eve, so we got to have our Christmas yum-yum’s..lol!:)-but that ‘Cable TV’ thing…grrrrrr!!!!:( (One can only take so many “Andy Griffith” and “Halloween” movies….) I didn’t even know that Louisville got all the SNOW until we took my Mom (God Rest her Soul..)to pick up her paycheck at work on Dec.23rd..her idiot boss had left their checks on their machines(they’d been ‘laid off’ a few days before, and he’d gone off to WHEREVER??!-lol!)so here we go, slippin’ & slidin’ thru ICE up I-65…we get to Jeff. Co, there’s all this SNOW…??!- Mom had a key to the gate/plant, so here we are,DIGGING our butts thru the snow into the plant..the lock is FROZEN?!-(OK-trudge BACK thru the snow to car to get a lighter..melt the lock…only to find this note on her machine:
“Hey,Mable,
I decided to just MAIL your check. Have a very Merry Christmas!… Chris”…
OKKKAAYY…back home we go…?!- We almost got side-winded by a Semi and we did lose control trying to get off the Bardstown Exit…ran into a snow bank, bent the radiator…(HEEEYY!-my hubby grew up in Valdosta, GA and St.Augustine, FL…whaddya EXPECT???!!!)LMAOOOO!!!!:):)(I BEGGED him to let ME drive, but,Ohhh…NOOO!!!??)
Wow, just as I’m about to move to West Virgina to start my first weather gig we’ve already got our first possible big snow on the door step. Definitely going to be interesting watching this develop over the next couple of days. Oh well, it’s going to be weird keeping an eye on the weather at home as well as up in the mountains.
Thanx Rolo..!
At 12/1, I’m on my man… yeeeeee yaaaaaa
Oh, and..
For Crystal, Patty, Amy, all my other Bloggers…:)…
Didn’t mean to ‘ignore’ you guys the other evening (18th, I think?!)…??!
I had a little girl…she’s now almost 7 months…Harper Elisabeth…she looks like her Daddy (Thank the Lord!?), lots of dark brown hair, BIG green eyes (from BOTH of us!), and she has her Mama’s “mouth” (oh,no!?)-She has started to talk already..YES!- her first word was “MEANNNN!!!!?:(“- referring to our Border Terrier, “Buster”, who was our “First Baby” (before Harpi..lol)-he just does NOT LIKE the whole IDEA of Harper being here…after all,HE was here FIRST..??!-(Buster was the last “Gift” my Mom got me before she passed on 2/8/06-long story!?) We did our BEST trying to get Buster used to having Harpi around, but he just still REFUSES??!- he used to “nip” @ her and such, mainly because she would “poke” him in the face, etc,when we weren’t looking…lol! We got a new puppy in Feb., “Keesha”, a Scottie/Spitz mix…more on the “Spitz” side..-she is very defensive around Harper, and won’t take no crap off Buster, so he’s settled down now!:)In fact, for a little short-legged,hairy dog, Keesha is quite the “Mistress” of the household now!!:)
Thanks for asking, you guys, and long as there is SNOW in the forecast, don’t worry about me…I’ll always be around!:)
If 00Z GFS run comes in with the same story…I will bite. It’s looking like the kids could have an even longer Thanksgiving holiday….
Do you guys see that textbook “double barrel” low that forms? That puppy is surface and aloft and strong enough to keep a lot of this as snow. Monday would be the worst day.
For the first time in a while, I watch and wait with bated breath…
So, are you saying this would be something that I can actually SEE??!-LOL!:) (Seriously..everytime it snows a “goodin” here in Bardstown, it’s always during the snooze-time, so I either wake up around 3am and look out the back door to see afew flakes,orI wake up around 8am and see about 6″+ on the ground, with that ‘purply” sky going on after a heavy snowfall??!
Is this what everyone is so excited about for the end of the weekend
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/displayMod.php?var=gfs_sfc_ptyp&hours=hr096hr108hr120hr132hr144
Patty, that map is extreme in its “broadbrushing” technique. By that, I mean that the precip shown on the map appears to take up a HUGE part of the country. No storm would ever bring heavy precip to such a large area all at the same time.
The general idea from this map is that snow is the likely precipitation type for most of the state, but details will need to be ironed out. In addition, the link you posted is only for one time frame, ran and executed at a certain point in time. This will change, as new information about the current jet stream and atmospheric configuration is discerned.
00Z runs still show our storm but doesn’t seem to show the double barrell low. It also surpresses the storm more to the South, thus leading to less snowfall. But it is still 90+ hours away. We don’t want this thing to show a bullseye on us right now. Still many more runs to sit through before anyone can pinpoint anything. The main thing is that the storm is still there.
00Z run:
The bottom line is, a snow storm is coming and Kentucky “looks” to be in play… Lets see what CB says about it all…
Completely agree with Justin on this. One thing that I would like to point out is that GFS still shows one heck of a trough digging through the heartland and east coast the first half of next week. Even if we don’t get much snow we are going to see some serious cold all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.
its the gfs and its 3 days from a call, the gfs is notorious for peein down our legs and telling us its raining but hopefully by now we know better, model agreement is what i want
agree, even with the east coast track we get 3-5 inches in north ky. with the double barrell low outcome there was a much higher threat of mix or the dreaded cold rain for those near the wv,va borders.
Wonderful post… Very informational and educational as usual!