Good Thursday, everyone. It’s a very mild couple of days taking shape into the start of the weekend, but that’s going to change quickly late Saturday as a strong cold front crashes in. This ushers in much colder air and the potential for winter weather later Sunday into Monday. All of this kicks off a rather wintry setup that’s likely to carry us through the Christmas and holiday season.
Temps out there today will hit 60-65 in the west and be around 60 in the central and east and Friday looks to be in similar fashion.
Temps hitting 60 in December here is actually very common in Kentucky, but you probably won’t hear that from the local weather world. How common is it? For Lexington, 84 of the past 100 years have featured at least one day with a December day in the 60s. Yes, you read that correctly… 84 of the past 100. We have actually had 17 straight Decembers with highs reaching 60 or better. The record is 13 days back in December of 1984. After that December, record cold and snow hit us in January and February. Even the coldest winter on record, 1977-78, started with 2 days in the 60s that December.
Don’t tell the local weather twitter folks any of this, though. Their knowledge of weather history started the same time Tik Tok did. By the way… GET OFF MY LAWN. 🙂
While we are on a temperature note, check out the temperature departures for the month of December, so far…
The SEC… The cold just means more! 🙂
Clouds thicken on Friday as low pressure works from the Plains into the Great Lakes. That drags a cold front into Kentucky on Saturday with showers and even a rumble of thunder. Winds along and ahead of the front may flirt with 40mph at times…
That front presses through on Sunday and slows down. My idea of a second low is back on the models and showing up better with each run. This comes from southwest to northeast and could bring a swath of snow to parts of the state Sunday night into Monday. How much and where depends on the strength of the low and the exact track. I suspect we are still a few days away from both of these being answered.
The GFS is weaker with the system and faster moving, impacting mainly southern and southeastern Kentucky…
The average of the 21 member GFS Ensembles is for a little farther north solution…
The EURO had a monster storm a few days ago, then totally lost it, now it’s picking back up on the system…
This looks like a system that is going to be pushed by the next one right on its heels by the middle of the week. Until the models resolve the first one, they won’t fully be able to figure out the mid-week one, but they can all see some kind of system…
GFS
CANADIAN
EURO
I will update things later today, so check back. Until then, have a good one and take care.
Pro dominated rain events.
If you want it to snow yow will have to trust a backside low will get it done.
Thanks Chris, On the European weather model I noticed that the low pressure system phases with the Polar jet over the far northeast and forms a major snowstorm/ nor’easter. Last Saturday this occurred depositing over a foot of snow in Augusta, Maine knocking out their electrical power.
Winter weather is occurring it’s just not here in the Ohio Valley as of yet. Chris brought up a good point that December in the Ohio Valley is actually a mild month most years. This year we have been a little below normal on temperature and precipitation in my county.
Someday the Ohio Valley will receive a major snowstorm and maybe training snowstorms throughout the entire Winter like we had back in 1969-70.
With this map of accumulating snow for the next ten day period one can see where the Polar jet (-) phases with surface low pressure system (+) The northern Rockies the snows are elevation induced. In the extreme northeast is where phasing is occurring.
https://weatherstreet.com/models/gfs-acc-snow-forecast.php
Maybe we will have some Polar air to phase in the southern Rockies later in the month and give us a wide spread snowstorm, but until then we will have to expect little snows or flurries.
The forecast for my county here in central Kentucky for Monday and Tuesday is a 20% chance for light snow or rain, which is pretty normal for this part of Kentucky anymore.