Good Thursday, everyone. Old Man Winter is finally coming to life across the eastern half of the country. After a long slumber, the old guy is up and at ’em, and ready to kick things into high gear over the next few weeks. From arctic blasts to snow chances… We have you covered during this time.

All of this kicks off with a potent weekend storm system that’s showing up stronger and stronger on the models. This system will wrap up on top of central Kentucky on Saturday then continue to deepen as it works off to the northeast into Sunday. As it does so… temperatures crash on VERY gusty winds. This will allow for rain to change to a period of light snow, with snow showers and squalls kicking in later Sunday.

Let’s run down the models…

The NAM through Sunday morning…

NAM

The GFS, which didn’t even have a storm until the past 24 hours…

GFSThe model now produces snowflakes all the way into the deep south Sunday…

GFS 4

Check out the temperature plunge as this storm goes through here…

GFS TempsWind chills Sunday night into Monday morning may drop to near 0 at times.

The GFS Ensembles mean really illustrates how strong this storm gets…

GFS 3

That’s a lot of wind with this storm system!

The Canadian Model with the storm…

Canadian 2

That model continues to run even colder with Monday morning lows…

Canadian

The European Model has a similar look to the above models…

Euro

Here’s my current thinking for this storm…

– Temps absolutely crash from west to east Saturday night into Sunday morning. Readings drop through the 20s Sunday afternoon.

– A period of light snow on the backside of the low could put down some accumulations Sunday morning. Snow showers and squalls then try to become widespread through Sunday into Sunday evening. Those could also put down some accumulations. Odds favor light accumulations as of now.

– Winds are going to crank this weekend and we could have some 35mph gusts at times. Wind chills Sunday are in the low and mid teens with near zero wind chills Sunday night.

A strong arctic cold front likely moves through Tuesday and early Wednesday…

GFS 2

That system continues to have some “nasty” to it. In addition to bitterly cold temps and high winds, if the system is being handled correctly by the models, I’ve seen similar setups produce a little thunder.

As you can see, there is a lot of winter showing up, and it looks rather active. Let’s see where it takes us over, not only the next few weeks, but the next few months.

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