Good Tuesday, everybody. Another weak system is working across the region today, bringing a little bit of ugly weather across the region. From here, the focus is on our bowling ball system set to impact parts of the region later this week and the overall wintry look going forward.

Let’s get this KWC blog party started with what’s going on out there today. Things start ugly across the eastern half of the state with some cold rain and a bit of a mix showing up. Keep an eye on those colder valleys in the east because a touch of freezing rain could show up this morning. As the day wears on, temps actually drop a bit from the northwest as a colder wind takes over. A few flurries may also fly this afternoon and evening, especially in the east. Here are your radars to follow along…

There’s a little bit of overunning moisture early Wednesday and that could keep a flake flying. Otherwise, mostly cloudy skies will be the rule as temps range from the upper 30s to the upper 40s across the state.

The next system quickly rolls into the Tennessee Valley by late Wednesday night and Thursday. This works from west to east, but the exact point it heads east will have a big impact on the weather across Kentucky. As of now, the southern half of the state has the best chance of seeing snow from this.

The EURO shows this scenario well, but also develops a band of lighter snow across much of the rest of the region…

This is what the Canadian has been showing for a while now…

The GFS continues to be the farthest south of the bunch…

Use caution with the GFS and NAM until we see any kind of trend in their direction from the other models. I suspect we may see the American Models shifting some today. Still, the pattern won’t allow this system to come very far north.

The air behind this is looking colder and colder thanks to the blocking we have been talking about going up. What does this mean for the next storm system early next week? That remains to be seen and we are watching the typical model fluctuations…

Canadian

The GFS is in the normal progressive frame of mind…

The new EURO has the cold crushing this storm even farther south and east…

The Climate Prediction Center has a neat little tool that takes some of the specific computer model runs and then asks the computers to match the overall pattern up with patterns from the past. Check out the top 10 matches from the latest GFS run centered on January 16th…

The period from January 15th to February 2nd from 1977 shows up 4 times on that list. January 1977 (Multiple below zero days) is the coldest month ever recorded in Lexington and much of this region. 1985 (-18 was the coldest day) shows up twice on the list and gave us the 8th coldest January of all time. January 2004 is on the list and temps did go below zero at the end of the month.  January 1980 shows up and temps went below zero to open February. January 1981 also had temps go below zero. January 2007 led into the 10th coldest February of all time in Lexington and gave us the only year on the list without a below zero. 1 was the coldest low temp. 🥶

I’m not saying the pattern ahead will come close to those extreme years, but it’s not that common when the computer matches up the pattern with every single year being an extreme one.

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