Good Tuesday, everyone. I warned you guys this was going to be an active pattern and the weather of the past few days certainly lived up to the billing. Everything from freezing rain, flooding rains and severe storms showed up with each creating issues across different parts of Kentucky. Now, we focus our attention on a snow system moving in tomorrow and another system this weekend and early next week.
Flooding issues continue in some areas after 1″-4″ of rain fell across the state late Sunday through Monday. Look at these totals from the Kentucky Mesonet…
How did the NWS offices not issue a Flood or Flash Flood Watch ahead of this stuff? Don’t worry… I’m not going to rant here because you already know the drill.
The snow moving in here from late Wednesday into Wednesday night looks like a general 1″-3″ for many, with the potential for a spot or two to do a little better. I will have the First Call For Snowfall map coming around noon today.
The computer models are in decent agreement on this. Watch the snow increase from west to east on the future radar from the Hi Res NAM…
The snow map from that run…
Here’s the regular run of the NAM…
GFS
ICON
EURO
The Canadian seems to be the oddball of the moment…
The average snowfall from the 21 member GFS Ensembles…
All of this will be accompanied by very cold winds blow in, creating wind chills that may reach the single digits by Thursday morning. Thursday and Friday feature fair skies with seasonably cold temps.
The next system moves in over the weekend and deepens through Monday. This looks like a messy mix/snow on the front end late Saturday before changing to rain Sunday. As the low wraps up, a strong northwest flow sets up and produces widespread light snow, snow showers and snow squalls Sunday night through Monday night.
The EURO has a big thumping front end snow before the change to rain. It also sees the strong wraparound action…
The GFS has been slow to recognize the pattern, but it’s catching up…
The Canadian is also trending in the same direction…
Yet another system is going to follow that up a few days later and can bring more interesting weather in here.
Updates and a First Call For Snowfall later today, so check back. Have a good one and take care.
Another 1 to 2” snowfall for the Louisville area.
Well, so far the snowstorm here in the Chicago area has been a big underachiever (gee, what a surprise). An unexpected large dry slot developed Monday evening over the area, greatly cutting down on snowfall totals, especially here in the SW suburbs where I am, about 40 miles SW of Chicago.
As of 2 AM local time, I would estimate only about 1.5 to 2 inches of snow has fallen here with very little snow currently falling. Radar shows that the heaviest snow is falling from Chicago and the western suburbs and further north. There will be lake enhancement later on in areas close to Lake Michigan. If we’re lucky, maybe my area can get another inch or so today with the low pressure moving away.
It’s certainly a far cry from the 6-9 inches that was forecast areawide on Sunday.
I’ll have a further update on the totals later today.
The weather service people did a GREAT job in forecasting the Heavy Rains yesterday.
Forecasting Snowstorms not so great unfortunately, unless one lives in an area that normally receive over a hundred inches a year.
Newest GFS run puts down 3-4 inches in central/eastern KY:
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2021012612/gfs_asnow_neus_10.png
Yesterday was the anniversary of the “Blizzard of 1978,” and I remember like it was yesterday. This is the way it was in the state of Indiana. A perfect storm with the phasing of two low pressure systems : https://www.weather.gov/ind/blizzardof78#:~:text=Beginning%20Wednesday%20January%2025%2C%201978,record%20for%20the%20Hoosier%20state.