Good Tuesday everyone and thanks for making KWC your home for weather. We’re getting closer and closer to the season that makes everyone a little crazy. Meteorological winter is about 6 weeks away and it’s what most people I meet want to chat about. It’s always fun to take a look to see what the upcoming winter may hold and expect MUCH more of that talk on the blog over the next few weeks. I may even throw you a bone before this post is finished. 😉
Today’s weather looks great with highs in the 60s under partly sunny skies.
Things begin to take a turn toward the windy by Wednesday as another big storm system works across the plains states. Southwesterly winds will crank up and this will boost thermometers into the 70s for highs. Clouds will filter in by the end of the day with a line of showers and storms not too far behind. This action is along a stout cold front swinging in from the west. You can see a pretty solid line of action showing up on the NAM…
Winds will really pick up as the front passes through here and we could see gusts topping out at 40mph or better into early Thursday.
Winds are going to be a major player around here all the way into the upcoming weekend. A bowling ball of upper level energy will roll from the plains into the Great Lakes and northern Ohio Valley. Check out just how anomalous this system looks on the European Model…
A few rounds of gusty showers will be possible during this time as chilly temps settle in. The pattern into early next week will beginning to grow warmer as another plains storm forms. This one will have a HUGE temperature gradient to work with…
Look at all the cold air showing up across Canada and into the northern plains and northwest. That is going to really lay down an early season snowpack across North America. That’s often a good thing for those of us around here wanting cold air for the winter.
One of the main factors in any winter is what’s happening across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The waters there had been warming pretty quickly this summer and it appeared we were well on our way to a weak to moderate El Nino. Looks can often be deceiving as the waters there have leveled off and even cooled a bit since that time. The current anomalies are simply not impressive…
It’s looking more and more like we will hang out on the warm side of neutral as things progress into winter. That means those waters will have less influence on the overall pattern across North America. Other factors such as the NAO, PNA, AO and EPO may alternate as being the big dogs driving the pattern.
Some new seasonal forecast models are out and I will give you guys a look at what they are saying for the upcoming winter. But, I won’t let you see them today. Those are coming up over the next few days. There’s a lot of blue on them across the United States. 😉
Enjoy your Tuesday and take care.
Please, Chris…SNOW, SNOW!
Just looked at the Temp JAMSTEC October update …Cold in the west and northern plains moderating eastward with normal temps for Ky ..Still keeping my fingers crossed for a weak El Nino….If you believe in the snow cover theory Siberia looks to be above normal so hopefully we’ll see a -AO ..Fun time of the year looking at all the data and the changes taking effect as we head into winter..
Thanks, Chris. Sounds like I am going to need winter and summer clothes for the next few weeks! Ah, autumn in Kentucky. Gotta love it!
I hope all is well with Chris. I look forward to seeing him on WKYT each evening and he has been missing in action lately. Hope to start seeing him regularly.
Sometimes it’s the weak or moderate El Nino events that wreak havoc, not the strong ones. This winter should at least be more exciting than last year.
Yeah, weak El Nino or near neutral conditions can make forecasting tough. At that juncture, your patterns are going to be controlled by the PNA/AO/NAO. One thing to remember is that a single MJO episode can kick El Nino into gear. Whether or not that happens is hard to say as the predictability of those in the long term have little skill. This really evident in looking at simple day to day runs of the CFS which show tremendous variability…though the 5 and 10 day running average tend to smooth things out a bit.
Wait…is Chris now saying that we aren’t going to have a colder/snowier winter than normal this year? We moved here last summer and my California-raised kids were a little disappointed by the lack of snow last winter. Last winter WAS less cold and snowy than normal, wasn’t it?
Yes last year was waaay above normal for us! Hopefully the ky kids will have lots of snow to play in this year! Fingers crossed!
Off the top of my head, Cincinnati/northern KY gets about 20 inches of snow in an average year, Lexington/Louisville about 14, Paducah KY/Nashville/Knoxville about 9, Memphis/Huntsville/Chattanooga about 5.
Kentucky is far enough south that what snowcover we get is seldom on the ground long. For example, Lexington’s average January highs and lows are low 40s and mid-20s, but Lexington has hit 80 in January (and -21). IIRC, Bowling Green had the official record for single snowfall (something like 21 inches), although this may have been broken during the March 1993 Superstorm.