Good Sunday everyone and thanks for dropping by KWC. The November brand of air made it into the bluegrass state right on cue Saturday and it looks to hang tough for a while. We have a few more systems to impact our weather over the next week, but I also want to start looking a little farther down the road. It is almost THAT time of the year, ya know. 😉

Let’s break out the headlines:

– Clouds and scattered showers will be across parts of the state early today. The showers will be more likely across the south and east. Clearing skies from west to east will be likely during the afternoon.

– To frost and freeze or not to frost and freeze? That is the big question ahead of us for tonight and Monday morning. There is a weak system crossing the Tennessee Valley later tonight and this may throw some clouds back into parts of the state. Clouds act like a blanket to keep things warmer than clear skies would. If you have clear skies tonight… plan on upper 20s and low 30s. Cloudy skies will only give you middle 30s. I will update this part of the forecast later today.

– Monday and Tuesday look great with temps around 60 Monday and well into the 60s for Tuesday. Skies should be partly sunny and this means some leaf peeping weather. I can’t rule out a Monday shower in the southeast.

– A cold front swings in on Wednesday with a renewed push of chilly air and some showers and thunderstorms.

– Another front is slated to arrive by Friday.

What happens as we head a little deeper into the fall? That’s what I’ve been looking at for the past several days and I wanted to share a few things swirling around in my meteorological manic mind.

2012 has been full of extreme weather events here in Kentucky, but these events haven’t been sneaking up on us. My handle of the overall pattern this year has been pretty good and certainly a far cry from my handle on the 2011 pattern that smacked me around a lot.

Will the extreme events continue through the fall and into winter? I think there is a very good chance of that happening, though I can’t tell you exactly what those extremes will be. That said… I am trying to hone in on something for the first half of November. Some of the limited  analog years I’m looking at featured some early season winter events during that time.

Even without the analogs… the fall pattern we’re in is one that can pull something like that off. We have had more than our share of high latitude blocking across the Northern Hemisphere. I have really been impressed with the amount of ridging along the west coast that extends north into Alaska. That setup may wane a bit over the next few weeks and that’s not a bad thing because you don’t want to waste it right now. You just want to see it every now and then, like we have witnessed, because that may be a signal of the coming months.

The CFS is showing that pattern returning in a big way by early November…

The big red blob shows where the highest heights are located and that’s a gorgeous sight for cold and snow lovers in the eastern half of the country. That forces the jet stream to take a big dip allowing cold air to move in from Canada…

Maybe the CFS and the analog years have been talking with one another? 🙂 Time will tell, but it’s something on my radar.

Have a great Sunday and take care.