Good Tuesday everyone. It’s an honest to goodness cold day out there across Kentucky with temps in the 30s and some morning flurries for some. We’ve finally kicked the warm pattern on outta town and replaced it with a seasonal brand of chill. So, where do we go from here? Let’s talk about that.
The short term part of the program will find a lot of clouds around the state early today and you may see a few flurries. The clouds may be very stubborn today and that’s something to watch for. Readings will be in the 30s for highs and feel even colder than that with a gusty wind blowing.
Wednesday through Friday looks pretty calm and quiet. Highs Wednesday will range from the upper 30s to low 40s and warm well into the 40s for Thursday and Friday with a 50 possible. Lows through the period will be in the upper 20s.
That brings us to the weekend and our next system moving in. An area of low pressure will work eastward into the region. Rain will overspread the state Saturday into early Sunday. That’s when cold air settles in from the northwest and our temps drop into the 30s by the end of the day. The GFS actually looks ok with this solution…
The low across the northern Ohio Valley will try to transfer energy to a coastal storm. That helps deepen the trough over us and gives us the chance for a change to light snow late Sunday into Sunday night.
There is likely to be a follow up storm diving into the lower Mississippi Valley early next week. Any storm that forms next week may deepen and be a very slow mover because it would be running into a road block. That comes in the form of a massive block across eastern Canada and Greenland…
That setup has been well advertised on the models for some time now. The European Model has been all over this for a while now and continues to show a monster setup…
Even the GFS has the idea of a big storm, but is too far southeast with it…
This is a pattern that is going to try to produce some big storms every 3 or 4 days through Christmas week. Let’s sit back and behave ourselves and maybe Santa will reward us! 😉
Have a great day and take care.
You know, if we did not have the last 14 years of “if it aint’ a clipper, it aint’ happenin” trend, I would be enthused for central KY 🙂
Does anybody have one of those Men In Black pens that zaps my memory? 😉
Good one, BubbaG!
Oh wouldn’t it be wonderful to have snow?! Really, really big snow! Chris, the Blog rocks….thank you for all you put into it! Have a blessed and safe day.
Thanks, Chris. We got some sleet last night, but didn’t see any snowflakes, at least not where I was. Temps are drastically different from yeaterday morning though. Can’t wait to see what Mother Nature has in store for the rest of the month! Have a great Tuesday, everyone. Thanks again Chris, for all you do.
You talk about some pretty eye candy! http://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/GemPakTier/MagGemPakImages/gfs/20121211/06/gfs_namer_192_850_temp_mslp_precip.gif. But it’s probably just Lucy setting up the football with a big smile on her face 🙁
typical of what the models show beyond 7 days
Ditto.
Never happen. In all reality, it will be 65 with flooding rains.
Feels like it did part of Nov. cloudy and temps in the 30s
yes it is indeed a BIG SET UP, blocking tc but will keep everthing just to fur to S/SE. but I will say this looking at things.
the SE part state, say LONDON to MT VERNON then on SE could get in on a good one. as we be opn the NORTHERN FRINGE of any storm that develops next few ekk to south. I actually think SE KY has good shot at a SNOW between now XMAS with a SHARP CUTOFF as usual. there going be couple big storms dive in and then move east NE so will just hav see if they can move just far enough for the SE/E part state get in on it. u know the routine.
its actualy bout a perfect set up with the blocking, but it only as I have stated have the FARRR SE/E in play for any real snow. but fact is ever old school i ever saw was a southern storm that turen up threw moisture back into our region.
saw 20 plus inches in 1987 and just few mile north there was nothing.
it is so hard to read your posts. they don’t make sense most of the time!
What Tyler said, Rolo! It seems like you have some interesting things to say, but I’m going to have to skip it if you don’t do some serious proof reading…honestly, between your abbreviations, typo’s and lack of punctuation it’s a LOT of work to try to figure out what you mean. Don’t mean to be an old fart…Just saying. 😉
Been reading them for three years and they all make pefect since to me….
I agree Rolo you are fine we all know what you mean we would not have it any other way….
I predict a WHITE XMAS for PARTS of KY.
I think you’re right, Rolo. Some places could be very, very white. I just hope I’m lucky enough to get in on it….looking out this far, not sure if Madison Co. is going to be too far north for this type of setup. One can only dream. Dreams do come true, sometimes. 🙂
West liberty you think we will be white I hope so.
I hope so, too, Marsha. 🙂 Can’t say for sure this far out, but it was like Rolo said. Looks like a southern and eastern thing—now I got my fingers crossed for east-central Kentucky since it’s kind of in the middle.
Thanks Aaron
Still enjoy following your blog from here in the mountains of Wv. I can say this winter has already shown that it’s not last winter, seeming we picked up 46″ of snow from sandy with some areas reaching 5ft.
But, I think we can consider Sandy an anomaly. Can we really count on another east to west storm between now and end of winter? The rest of the winter could very well be similar to last winter other than the totals received from that storm.
Here in the Lake Cumberland area….I’m hoping we’re far enough SE to get in on that Christmas gift! The NWS is trying to put the kabosh on any weekend wintery precip with highs forecast in the mid 50’s & lows in the 40’s
When I mentioned “White Christmas,” I was referring to the storm that MIGHT form and hit the Ohio Valley, like Chris was alluding to. If it’s anything to be watched, just let Chris explain it and we’ll hold off on any potential hype until we have a good confidence that it may impact us. Until then, enjoy the colder weather and a quiet stretch for the next several days. Don’t want to put the imaginary cart before the imaginary horse, lest we end up with a brown lawn for Christmas.
IS the SREF model out of service? I have for some time been trying to pull it up without success.
All this talk of cold and snow chances in December but when you look at noaa extended 6to10 and 8 to14 day temps for this area their is nothing but above normal temp maps on their, Don’t understand the big differences in forecast as usual??
Those same maps showed it being above normal in August, September, October, and November and all four months ended up being below normal. I have hardly ever seen them forecast below normal in the extended. I would just ignore those maps.
Todd, the difference is that meterologists like Chris take extra time to examine the long-range maps and see possibilities. The NWS offices focus more on short-term forecasts and go with more generalities on the long-term forecasts. The same thing happens on the Accuweather.com site where their generic long-range forecasts go out several days and are sometimes quite different than what their individual meteorologists will blog in their columns. The moral is that forecasting anything further than three days out, especially in the winter, is a crap shoot. It’s fun to to watch the possibilities though 🙂
I agree it is a crap shoot this time of year, but seems NOAA always leans toward the warmer no matter what they see in models!
Agreed. The NWS is conservative and will usually lean towards less-impact events and non-extremes. Not sure I blame them considering the lack of winter last year and so far this year. That’s another reason why we come on here and like to hear Chris’ enthusiasm for possibilities. If we don’t get some snow before the end of the year, however, Chris is going to take a lot of criticism I’m afraid.