Good Thursday, everyone. We have a surge of modified arctic air sweeping into the region today, but this is just the opening act for a much bigger surge of winter weather early next week. That will be complete with the real deal arctic cold and even the potential for snow.

Let’s start with where we are today and roll forward. Rain becomes widespread this morning as our front drops in here from the northwest. That’s going to set up a big temperature drop behind this front as the 30s show up very quickly. As that happens, a few snowflakes try to mix in on the back edge of the departing rain shield. Here are your early Thursday radars…

As that strong northwesterly wind flow kicks in, a few flakes may also show up in southeastern Kentucky after the main band of precip pushes out. Those same gusty winds will give us some ugly wind chill numbers. Check out the numbers through early Friday…

Actual lows by Friday morning have a chance to hit the teens in some of the coldest valleys…

Highs on Friday may stay in the 30s for many, with the winds making it feel colder. Readings drop into the 20s during high school playoff games that evening.

Saturday is a seasonally chilly day with 20s in the morning and mid and upper 40s in the afternoon. The 50s return for Sunday as winds gust up ahead of our arctic blast arriving on Monday. The arctic front moving in here is likely to have a band of rain in front of it and snow behind it. There could be a wave of low pressure along the front to enhance the snow chances for Monday into Tuesday. All the models see this, but show their usual differences from a few days away…

EUROPEAN

GFS

CANADIAN

ICON

The air coming in behind our front could bring record or near record lows into our region. Some of the latest runs are showing historic cold for this early in the season…

GFS

I will have updates later today, so check back. Make it a good one and take care.