Good Friday everyone. We are just about to the weekend and a massive weather change is in store for the bluegrass state over the next 24 hours. Once the change to chilly takes place… it’s going to stick around for a while. This is a pattern we’ve been forecasting for nearly two weeks now and is one straight out of late November.
Today will start with plenty of sunshine across the state as our temps warm into the 70s for afternoon highs. An 80 is possible for a few spots that keep the sun going longer into the afternoon hours. Clouds will quickly fill our skies by the late afternoon hours as a strong cold front approaches from the northwest.
Winds will really gust up today and showers will develop and move in during the evening hours. Those rains will then carry us into early Saturday before we try to dry it up for the bulk of the afternoon. The NAM shows this well…
Temps will be in the low 40s for many to start the day and recover into the 50s during the afternoon. A wave of low pressure will then develop along the front and throw another round of showers in here Saturday night and Sunday…
That is one cold rain that moves across the state as our temps Sunday morning will be upper 30s to around 40 and only recover to around 50 Sunday afternoon. That setup above will produce snow as close by as the highest elevations of West Virginia.
Clearing skies late Sunday will set us up for a very cold night. Lows Monday morning in the upper 20s and low 30s will be likely and a freeze is possible for some areas.
A cold front will move our way by Wednesday and this will bring us a shower threat and a renewed push of chilly air…
The GFS shows another push of chilly air by next Friday…
Are you detecting a pattern here?
Have a great Friday and take care.
It looks to me from the models that we will be below freezing all day Sunday. Wouldn’t that mean snow for us?
that dark blue line that i think u r referencing for below freezing temps, i think that is for the temps 5,000 feet up in the air. any one with more knowledge feel free to chime in and correct me but i think i have heard chris mention this several times over the air and read it in his blog. thanks and god bless.
1 thing i forgot to mention is that that blue line does represent the rain and snow line but it is not always exact.
You also have to look at the surface temps to determine whether it would be snow or not. I believe the maps Chris posted just show the upper atmosphere temps.
How do you determine when the map is showing the snow/rain dividing line (surface temperature freezing line)) vs. the 5,000ft air temperature of freezing?
There are actually different charts. There is a 2 meter set of charts, then the 850 millibar (approx. 5,000 ft.) set of charts. Why on Earth some people are so fixated on the 850 charts I have no idea. You use them all when making a forecast, but if I personally was going to show the public rain/snow chances…the surface charts are the only thing that matters.
P.S. next weekend is looking like a carbon copy of the one in progress.
But to answer your question, a rough rule of thumb is to add 18 degrees to what you see on the 850 charts and that’ll give you a ballpark idea of what the temp. will be at the surface.
I don’t know why cb doesn’t just show the surface charts. It would be so much easier for those of us who do not know much about the models. I love this blog, but cb has been slacking lately on explaing things.
i might be seeing things a little different than most people but it appears on radar that this system may be over achieving just a tad as far as rain goes. may be a little wetter than most forecast r calling for…….we shall see.
Yes the 850 charts are in the air about 5000 feet. So it may very well be snowing just about a mile above our heads this weekend but we will be in the rain. So I don’t think we will see any snow in KY this weekend except for maybe Black Mountain, which has a real shot of seeing some snow showers.