Good Monday, everyone. A quick-hitting rain and winter weather maker exists eastern Kentucky early today as our focus shifts to the next winter weather system rolling in for Tuesday night and Wednesday. This likely impacts the entire region and looks like a rather messy system.

Once again, KWC servers are being upgraded today so you may experience down times and slow times until this is complete. Hopefully, this will fix the issue. If not, pray I win the lottery soon. 💰

The heavy rain is ending as a swath of snow across areas of the east and southeast. Some of this may be on the heavy, wet side and put down slushy accumulations. While most of the state won’t see accumulations, a few areas could get in on a hit and run thumper in the far southeast. Here are your radars to follow the transition, then to watch the snow pass to our east…

This is going to put down a tremendous amount of snow in areas of West Virginia. Smackdown snows for some of the Mountain State.

The rest of our Monday is a rather raw and seasonably cold day with many areas struggling to get out of the 30s. The same can be said for Tuesday as clouds increase ahead of our next storm system. This is a much bigger system that’s going to turn into an absolute beast along and east of the Appalachian Mountains. This is a full-blow shutdown snowstorm for millions of Americans from the Apps all the way to many of the big cities along the coast.

Here are some thoughts on this setup:

  • This is NOT a major storm for Kentucky or even close.
  • One low pressure works into the lower Ohio Valley or Tennessee Valley Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
  • Cold air will already be in place as this system arrives.
  • The exact track and strength of this lead low will be the determining factor on how precipitation types and amounts where you live. All modes of precipitation are likely to show up at some point.
  • Areas getting in on all snow or mostly snow can pick up on a few inches or a little more. The best risk for this is likely across the northern half of the state.
  • Pockets of freezing rain may also show up as slightly warmer air aloft works in.
  • This is likely a fairly widespread Winter Weather Advisory type system.
  • Once this main system moves through, watch for some additional light snow and flurries to develop over us Thursday as another upper level system moves in.

Here’s a look at my preliminary impact map…

Obviously, I will update that through the day and may even be able to get a First Call For Snow/Winter WeatherFall out at some point.

In terms of what the models are seeing, the Hi Res NAM only goes through 7am Wednesday, but shows the mess moving in…

The NAM is a little more east than earlier runs, allowing for more of a snow look…

The Canadian is similar…

Here’s the EURO…

The GFS continues to be the GFS and is way too progressive with the whole setup. One of the reasons is because it puts too much emphasis on the northern stream low into our region which in turn messes everything up including the temp profile.

If you recall, this is the upgraded GFS from 2019 and, since we didn’t have very many winter systems last winter, this has been our first looks at how it handles everything. It needs some work.

Another system works our way by the upcoming weekend and looks like it could bring rain and some snow in here. If we can time things out properly, the next system would arrive here around Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to give us a chance. 🎅 Some wild model swings are going to show up, so use caution with any single run.

I will have your normal updates later today. Have a good one and take care.