Good afternoon, folks. We have a complicated forecast playing out this evening as a wintry mix of precipitation overspreads the area. This kicks off a a system that gets much easier to forecast from Sunday through Tuesday as rain changes back to snow.
The front end precipitation is going to create some headaches this evening as we try to fine tune where the mix/snow line starts. The best chance continues to be in the north and northeast, but I’m nervous this may start a little farther south with a few hours of snow or mix into the Lexington metro and points east and even southeast.
Here’s the First Call For Snowfall for this complicated setup…
Literally nothing south of the Ohio River is a given on that map, so just know that going in. This will be an evening of nowcasting based on radar and temp trends. It looks like one band of winter weather moves in this evening in this area, with a break, then another area overnight. Both can put down some snow or mix. I will update that map, if needed, later today.
Here are some of the model forecasts for the front end of this through early Sunday afternoon:
The NAM is the most aggressive with the snow into most of central and eastern Kentucky…
The EURO is also fairly far south…
The GFS isn’t as feisty but is also south…
Now you guys can see why I’m a little nervous about totals on the southern edge of my forecast.
All of this changes to rain from southwest to northeast late tonight into Sunday morning. That’s when low pressure works in here and weakens later Sunday as it moves into West Virginia. As that happens, cold air quickly funnels in from the northwest and changes our rain to snow. A few areas of intense bands will likely show up Sunday night into Monday before widespread snow showers and squalls kick in late Monday through early Tuesday.
Some pretty good totals are likely to show up during this time and my First Call For Snowfall may be a little conservative…
Some areas in that 1″-3″ may need to be nudged up a bit.
The EURO continues to be VERY enthusiastic with the wraparound snows. This is the total snowfall map from today through Tuesday…
Here’s the NAM during this same time…
GFS
Quietly, this is turning into a very good winter for snow lovers across central and eastern Kentucky. Lexington has had more than a foot of snow since the final day of November and the NWS in Jackson has had around 17″ in the same span… Both numbers are above normal.
The average 2 week snowfall from the 21 member GFS Ensembles is the highest so far this winter…
The pattern for February and early March is likely to keep our numbers above normal and, potentially, well above normal.
Of course, I will drop by for another update later this evening. I leave you with your wintry mess tracking radars…
Have a good one and take care.
Unless the snow line changes from here on out. There’s nothing normal comes to snow here in western.ky. We’ve been shut off for decent snow for two years and still counting
Winter Lover, I think your area and mine have been in a “the dry slot” coming from the South all Winter when it comes to Snow.
Probably won’t change until we get a change to an El Nino phase of ENSO. and that doesn’t promise it will be Snowy unless it is in the right place out in the Pacific Ocean.
So far this season here in Taylor county, which I always thought was in Central Kentucky, I recorded 3.5 inches of Snow to date. I think our average is 13 inches of Snow, but that average might have decrease over the years.
How has there been a foot of snow in Lexington? Trying to make sure I’m not going nuts.
Bubba the set up is Lexington has been in the cold slot when moisture comes in. Here in western ky were always in the warm slot
The average yearly Snowfall for Lexington. Kentucky is 10 inches.
For Paducah it’s 7 inches.
My area is the big winner at 13 inches. LOL
Average snowfall in my area here in NW PENNSYLVANIA is around 90-100 in but we’re running well below that right now.
Actually I just looked up the average Snowfall for Erie, Pa. It’s right at 101 inches of Snow.
Chicago, Ill. is at 35 inches of Snow yearly.
This year the Lake Effect hasn’t been good this winter.
The snow and mix is approaching the Chicago area from the SW, though it’s just snowing very lightly here in the SW suburbs as of 2:30 PM local time. Radar is showing a very large area of rain in downstate IL and Missouri, which will change to heavy snow as it approaches Northern IL toward evening.
It’s currently 33 degrees, but temps are expected to drop to freezing or just below during the course of the snowstorm, hence the heavy, wet snow.
I just looked at the Water Vapor Loop and there appears to be a dry slot working into this Storm from the Southwest which will cut down on the rain totals here in my county of Taylor.
I hope on the backside of this Storm we get at lease another one of those one inch wet Snows. The trees were beautiful the other morning for a short while to enjoy.
We already received a decent dusting this afternoon. Huge flakes came quick