Good afternoon, everyone. One little winter weather maker is now off to our east and now we fully focus on the next system coming at us Tuesday night and Wednesday. This one looks to bring messy winter weather to the Commonwealth, complete with accumulating snow, a touch of sleet and freezing rain, and some just plain old rain.
Before we look ahead, let’s look back at our snowy morning in the southeast.
Here’s shot from the Interstate 75 Cam in Corbin earlier this morning…
A couple of the videos I got from Twitter…
https://twitter.com/amy_gambrel/status/1338475793782018048?s=20
@AndrewWMBF @spann @lucky13wxman @nwsjacksonky @RyanBeesleyFox5 @TeamW700 @brobwx @WxManShane @WeatherNation @PaigeWYMT @BrookeWYMT @Kentuckyweather @AdamBurnistonWX @WLKYChris @MarcWeinbergWX Wet #snow falling in London #kywx #ekywx pic.twitter.com/EsxbgPRM7h
— Johnnie Nicholson (@thekyniche) December 14, 2020
For those who got in on the snow, it was picturesque while it lasted.
Temps out there this afternoon are cold with most of us staying deep in the 30s under cloudy skies. A couple of flurries may wander by your skyline from time to time.
At this point, I have no changes on the next system moving into the region over the next few days…
- 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. That can also put down light accumulations.
- Overall, this will be a pretty nice winter setup a week before Christmas.
If you’re wanting much more of a snow event, and a decent one at that, then you want to cheer on the NAM fam…
NAM
HI RES NAM
While I cannot endorse this scenario at the moment, I can’t rule it out either. One thing to consider is how the NAM usually handles temps better in setups like this.
The Canadian is much more messy…
The EURO…
The GFS continues to be the GFS…
Outside of the messy system, you can see the light snow maker coming in behind that for Thursday, especially in central and eastern Kentucky.
Another system rolls in for the weekend with some rain or rain and snow. Behind that will be a system we need to watch around Christmas. I warned you guys of some wild model swings and the GFS shows what I’m talking about.
Here’s the run from this morning for Christmas Eve and Day…
Here’s the run from 6 hours earlier…
Folks, always start looking at the 500mb level then worry about the rest later. Way too many folks get caught up in surface charts or temps in the longer range. Check out this Christmas Day deep trough showing up on the average of the EURO Ensembles…
That’s likely a healthy signal for a big storm system around that time.
The average of the 51 member EURO Ensembles is seeing some Christmas week snow opportunities…
The GFS Ensembles are seeing it too…
I will have the latest on WKYT-TV through the evening and will drop by for another KWC update. Have a good one and take care.
JIM said a warmer christmas week at 4;30 this morning.
Local Ville mets not even going there, Rolo. I think maybe this might be our year for a GOOD White Christmas. 🙂 Good to see you again, Rolo! 🙂
could be by the lokk of models, i just got a chance look over things.
Didn’t the GFS nail the system this morning?
Sure looks like all the others way over estimated the “ dynamic cooling” that was being discussed.
The GFS had zero snow showing up anywhere until the final run or two.
Chris, when I was growing up 8+ inches of snow would be considered a White Christmas LOL just kidding.
In my 70 years I’ve only seen three Christmases with more than 4 inches of snow on the ground.
I have in Indiana seen many snowstorms between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not here in Kentucky.
Never seen any here in central Kentucky and I kind of wonder if Taylor county has ever had a White Christmas?
I don’t think there are any weather records around telling me different ?
With each weather model run, the snowstorm / blizzard looks more impressive for the Northeast than it did two days ago.
It will be fun to track and see the videos when they come out.
I can watch the videos while the weather here will be gray and depressing. UGH !
Schroeder, I think the area of Marion, Green and Taylor had snow on Christmas Day back somewhere around 1970, give or take a year. I was around 8 and we’d all(all my relatives from Hardin, Green, etc counties) went to my aunt’s house outside of Lebanon for Christmas that year. We always had dinner around 12:30-1pm, and then open gifts afterward, and that year, it started snowing reallllllyyy hard and accumulating fast, so everyone pretty much opened and said “Thank You, Bye-Bye!” so we could all get home. We’d traveled to Greensburg to spend Christmas Eve with my aunt & uncle, and we all went to Lebanon together, so we had to take them back to G-Burg then head on back to Bardtsown. Lots of nasty hills and curves the way we went back then(much better now!), and the snow had really picked up by the time we got home. That’s about the only Christmas snow I remember, at least of any significance, that would have been in that area around Christmas.
I gotcha…ok. From just an untrained eye….it seemed like it ended up closer to the actuality of the event than the others.
Appreciate the feedback Chris!
Yesterday the Canadian model appeared to be the best for an accumulating snow. Now it has rain covering the majority of Ky. Lets see if the NAM will stick to its forecast.