Good Friday, everyone. Your friendly weatherdude has had a long work day courtesy of the NCAA tournament, so you’re getting the leftovers. Old Man Winter is ready to throw some junk our way as we head into the weekend. This is a supercharged pattern for the rest of March, so buckle up.
Highs today reach the low 60s in many areas as clouds filter in by the afternoon and evening. Colder air filters in tonight as low pressure develops and works just to our south. That throws moisture into the region and it’s likely to touch off rain and some snow.
After that zips away, another system dives in on northwesterly flow for Sunday. That can bring another period of some light rain and light snow.
The NAM continues to suggest it can snow hard enough to overcome the melting process across the northern half of the state. Use this with caution…
The GFS isn’t too far away…
While it will be hard to get anything to stick, it’s certainly possible for it to snow hard enough to overcome the warm ground. I need to see some more data before even thinking about a possible snowfall map. Sigh.
Temps quickly warm by Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. This is ahead of a powerhouse storm that can bring some big thunderstorms and heavy rains by the end of the week…
Look at the rainfall numbers from the GFS through next week…
I’ll hook you up with an update or two later today. Enjoy your Friday and take care.
We need to shift that heavy rain about 100 miles or so the south and east as we are getting a little dry down here in Harlan with some fire issues. Yesterday when I came home from work, a fire got out of control three houses above me and caught the whole hill on fire! luckily, 4 fire trucks came and got the blaze in control before anyone suffered a house fire.
Only at 1.22 for the month here in Harlan…thankfully, we had a surplus of 2 inches in February, and if this March goes down dry, we should cancel out for no year-to-date deficit thus far.
Also, I still think we deserve freeze warnings for Sunday night and maybe Monday night, but I don’t think we will get them as we are about 2 weeks early on the start of the growing season.
Down here in Southern KY, about every kind of fruit tree is either in full bloom or near, with the exception of Cherry and Apple trees.
Freeze Watches/Warnings already up for places as far south as Oklahoma and Arkansas.
But each NWS office has different criteria for freeze advisories. The same office can even treat individual states under its jurisdiction differently. Take NWS Jacksonville for example; for Florida counties under its jurisdiction, NWS Jacksonville can issue freeze advisories all winter no matter how many times it happens, but this same office also discontinues freeze advisories for south Georgia counties early in the cold season and doesn’t resume such advisories until the end of the cold season.
A similar thing with snowfall. NWS Buffalo may barely issue a Snow Advisory while NWS Mobile/Pensacola may issue a Winter Storm Warning for a similar storm.
How far are things out in Nashville? You may get a freeze warning or watch.
Also, I think NWS and other agencies rely to much on historical averages when declaring advisories such as horticultural interests. It seems like Jackson will not issue frost/freeze advisories before April 1st no matter how far things are out. Also, Jackson rarely issues frost/freeze advisories after November 1st, even if the area hasn’t had a hard freeze yet:(
All the more reason to rely on Chris Bailey 😉 . Anyway, the Freeze Watches are creeping eastward thus KY and TN may be next.
BTW, I spent my early childhood in Morristown TN (before the NWS office there was established) which is not too far from you in southern KY.