Good Friday, everyone. High winds and heavy rains continue into parts of the region early today. Last night’s winds caused quite a bit of damage in central Kentucky as the gusts were near 60mph. The focus of the early Friday forecast is on the flood threat in the southeast.
Looking down the road, another flood threat develops Sunday night and Monday, with winter weather lurking behind that into the opening few days of 2019.
Let’s start with the flooding threat in the southeast. Waves of heavy rain are putting it down across this region, leading to the potential for flash flooding and general flooding. Here are your early day trackers…
The rain ends quickly this afternoon with mostly cloudy skies taking over. The mild temps will crash quickly from west to east and drop into the 20s by Saturday morning. Saturday is a seasonally cold with mostly cloudy skies and highs in the upper 30s and low 40s.
The next system arrives late Sunday and continues into New Year’s Eve Day. That brings gusty winds and more heavy rain…
That may bring another 1″-3″ into parts of the region, especially the central and western areas of Kentucky. That would bring another threat for flooding. Happy New Year!
Cold air crashes in behind that departing system for the first day of 2019. That’s when we focus on a third system developing to our south. This storm continues to trend farther west on the models…
New version of the GFS…
GFS
Canadian
We will have to wait and see just how far north and west that system can come, but the trend with all these storm systems is for them to show up much stronger and farther west.
I will have updates later today. Have a fantastic Friday and take care.
18 Comments
Terry on December 28, 2018 at 2:12 am
Yep. Too much of a constant NW shift has been the theme on ALL models this year. Usually, GFS suffers from the NW shift syndrome but all models seem to be getting worse with this constant bias. That NW shift would put SE KY in the heaviest rain again for the third system if it only tends a little more west which is likely. Sigh!
BubbaG on December 28, 2018 at 8:29 am
That’s why best to disregard the models for snow until 24 hours before. The models are absolutely awful with snow.
Bobt on December 28, 2018 at 4:23 am
2018 is going to end with the same theme that it’s been all year. RAIN. Would be nice to get a stretch of dry weather. I can’t remember a year where there wasn’t really an extended period of dry weather, but this year has been like that.
2008 we had a really bad drought and a long stretch without any rain. I’ll never forget it. The wind would blow, and you could see dust flying up from the ground. That’s when gas prices were about $4.75 around here.
Andy Rose on December 28, 2018 at 7:45 am
The hardest gust from the big wind I had had was 13 mph. The rainfall total is 1.32
BubbaG on December 28, 2018 at 8:25 am
That had to be the wimpiest high winds that were forecasted in memory. Thankfully, rather than a few hours of gusts and 50 to 60 mph, there were maybe a 30mph briefly and then 20s for a few minutes. None of the usual debris you would see either. Seems it lost steam on the way east in the state, or missed some of us.
Terry on December 28, 2018 at 9:27 am
I am only a little over inch at the moment and the rain is quickly moving out within a hour or two. Harlan lucked up as most of the heavier rain stayed to my south last night and progressed faster than models predicted. No issues here but a bit of runoff!
BengalFan on December 28, 2018 at 8:17 am
I can’t even think about cold or snow, my brain is water logged
The third system will either stay just south of cky, or travel on top of us with more rain
Jimbo on December 28, 2018 at 8:21 am
My thoughts exactly.
Matt on December 28, 2018 at 8:36 am
Looks like rain totals are lower than guidance across most of the area, not seeing any flooding reports. It’s about time the models were wrong on rain for once instead of just wrong on snow all the time..
We are all missing out… Unless you’re talking about rain
SkiWi on December 28, 2018 at 9:08 am
It was just this time last week that Snowshoe was forecasted to have 3-5 inches of snow. And what happened to the Polar Vortex hype? Get used to this folks.
Jimbo on December 28, 2018 at 11:43 am
Models say snow/cold coming in one week.
Andy Rose on December 28, 2018 at 11:55 am
They say that every week 🙁
BengalFan on December 28, 2018 at 12:39 pm
We really need to come up with a song titled “week away”….
Doesn’t Diamond Rio have a song titled “In a week or two”
I’m like everybody else sick of rain. Looking forward to January hopefully it be snow instead of rain.
Coffeelady on December 28, 2018 at 12:02 pm
Headed north to Cleveland area today. Watching your radar to see when we get out of this rain! My hubby even said he wishes it was snow! Ugh. Travelling both ways in it looks like. Hope everyone stays warm and dry. Thanks Chris for all you do!
Yep. Too much of a constant NW shift has been the theme on ALL models this year. Usually, GFS suffers from the NW shift syndrome but all models seem to be getting worse with this constant bias. That NW shift would put SE KY in the heaviest rain again for the third system if it only tends a little more west which is likely. Sigh!
That’s why best to disregard the models for snow until 24 hours before. The models are absolutely awful with snow.
2018 is going to end with the same theme that it’s been all year. RAIN. Would be nice to get a stretch of dry weather. I can’t remember a year where there wasn’t really an extended period of dry weather, but this year has been like that.
2008 we had a really bad drought and a long stretch without any rain. I’ll never forget it. The wind would blow, and you could see dust flying up from the ground. That’s when gas prices were about $4.75 around here.
The hardest gust from the big wind I had had was 13 mph. The rainfall total is 1.32
That had to be the wimpiest high winds that were forecasted in memory. Thankfully, rather than a few hours of gusts and 50 to 60 mph, there were maybe a 30mph briefly and then 20s for a few minutes. None of the usual debris you would see either. Seems it lost steam on the way east in the state, or missed some of us.
I am only a little over inch at the moment and the rain is quickly moving out within a hour or two. Harlan lucked up as most of the heavier rain stayed to my south last night and progressed faster than models predicted. No issues here but a bit of runoff!
I can’t even think about cold or snow, my brain is water logged
The third system will either stay just south of cky, or travel on top of us with more rain
My thoughts exactly.
Looks like rain totals are lower than guidance across most of the area, not seeing any flooding reports. It’s about time the models were wrong on rain for once instead of just wrong on snow all the time..
WKY will again miss out…..
We are all missing out… Unless you’re talking about rain
It was just this time last week that Snowshoe was forecasted to have 3-5 inches of snow. And what happened to the Polar Vortex hype? Get used to this folks.
Models say snow/cold coming in one week.
They say that every week 🙁
We really need to come up with a song titled “week away”….
Doesn’t Diamond Rio have a song titled “In a week or two”
I’m like everybody else sick of rain. Looking forward to January hopefully it be snow instead of rain.
Headed north to Cleveland area today. Watching your radar to see when we get out of this rain! My hubby even said he wishes it was snow! Ugh. Travelling both ways in it looks like. Hope everyone stays warm and dry. Thanks Chris for all you do!