Good Friday afternoon. Our weekend is off and running on a very nice note across the bluegrass state with sun and temps in the low 50s. Changes are brewing for the weekend with clouds and showers increasing and this leads us into an active pattern that features winter returning next week.
The models are actually starting to agree with one another to some degree. An area of low pressure should develop across the lower Ohio Valley Monday afternoon and lift northward. It should then spawn a secondary low to our east and northeast by early Tuesday. Even the 6z run of the GFS showed this scenario…
Of course the 12z run showed something different.. but it is the GFS. The GFS Ensemble Mean shows the low to our east by Tuesday morning…
The Canadian Model…
The look of those three models suggest to me that we have gusty rains around Monday with some snow mixing in Monday evening and night with wraparound light snow and snow showers into Tuesday with temps in the 30s.
I still say some pretty good model swings are in store this weekend.
The active pattern continues toward the end of next week as another storm works in Thursday with a powerhouse cold front. This is likely to be a massive cutoff trough across our region and much of the east and that means very cold air overwhelms us and snow chances will carry us from the end of the week through Christmas weekend.
Can you handle highs in the 20s and on and off snows leading up to Christmas? I thought so. 🙂
Enjoy the rest of your day and take care.
Seems like a very possible result 🙂
Just as long as ice is not part of the outlook. Though the models are bad at big snow, they are good in a bad way for ice. Pretty darn accurate for ice. Boo.
even though it’s pretty far out, ice is a little scary.
Still waiting on winter to show up to start with 😉 Snow only if there is enough to play in if it just floats in the air and gets roads wet its useless IMO
Interesting battle right now between Chris’s forecast & LMK. LMK’s forecast has highs above average every day for the next seven days including a 60 on Sunday. Tuesday? 47 and partly sunny. If LMK is right, we are well on the way to a Top-10 Warmest December and a well above average winter temperature wise. If Chris is right, winter is coming.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out…the weather channel, weather underground and the Louisville mets aren’t biting. Seasonably cool next weekend with highs forecast in the 40’s with lots of sunshine and lows near 30. I see no reason right now to believe the models more than 2 days out at most. I’ll be surprised if I see a low at my house below 26 degrees the rest of the year.
Hey Chris. If I’m looking at the 12z run of the European correctly, doesn’t it bring cold and snow to Ky this time next week?
http://meteocentre.com/models/ecmwf_amer_12/PNM_panel.gif
22nd of Dec looks good…I believe the gfs also had something in this time frame from yesterday runs…..
God bless the little angles in this tragedy…Heart’s and prayer’s too all the families in ct…Such a sad day…
12z EC as is brings a good deal of snow showers to central and eastern KY. Temps in the 10’s ( lows) and 20’s with gusty winds all weekend. However I’m more suspecting of any model past day 7 then I have ever been including the EC. A lot going on for the models to handle.
One s/w after another..Also believe the models are being fooled by the pacific..Pacific is winning so far..lol
Mitch ole boy! Good to here from you. Gonna miss your blog this winter and reading your thoughts. Hope you’ll input on here while your back in good ole Ky., especially with the looming winter weather.
What happened to the Dec 7-14 time frame for the arrival of a block busting cold front. I’ll believe that the hounds of winter are about to be released when I see it!
Ummmm our temps dropped 30 degrees in a few hours on Monday with light snow and sleet. Sleep through that one?
we have had temp drops before maybe not quite 30 degrees but close and snow and sleet didnt’ effect that many folks but your the man anyways Mr Bailey 😉
30 degree temp drop in a few hours? Ok. I’ve really enjoyed working in the nice weather this week. Almost balmy the past couple days.
Chil, don’t question anything around here… especially the timeframe you are referring to. Just continue to pay attention to the crafty “wintry” language and nod in acceptance. We’re just the common people.
About a 20 degree swing in temps between Chris and NWS for next week, the battle is on, I bet Chris is more on target than those heat loving guys at NOAA!
I’ll take the over on temps. Nothing this month suggest otherwise. On track for one of the warmest Decembers ever and I’d be willing to wager that our winter comes in above normal temps and below normal snow.
I think it will improve from last winter. Nowhere to go but up (since last winter for most was about nothing).
If next week does not pan out for cold, THEN there might be something and the trend is similar to last winter. Bleh on that. Then again, we tend to be more likely to get big ice than snow around here, so maybe we DO want a wimpy winter- if ice is the main player.
well we went from snow to rain and snow to rain for monday through wednesday so now we have to hope next weekend pans out 😉
http://youtu.be/GsSXMT0NrB4
Yeah, we’ll see. I was out in a tee shirt today and Sunday is supposed to be in the mid 60’s, close to what we had last Sunday. Winter forecast beyond 2 days are worthless. The only time you can trust a long term forecast around here is June-September (hazy, hot and humid).
Chris is going much closer to raw model forecast while the NWS forecasts are close to the 12z GFS mos output. I wouldn’t buy into the extreme colder solutions at this point. If the models are right on the degree of cold coming in, then raw guidance works. If today’s runs are overdone then the mos will work out better.
For those wondering I will back in KY next week for Christmas and just checking in. Things going well here in NJ.
Good to hear from you Mitch
I live in NW WV, about a couple hours away from Kentucky. On the 6pm newscast, a local met said Winter will finally hit next weekend. Friday, to be exact. He is forecasting very cold temps and snow squalls from then right through Christmas. He and Chris seem to be in agreement.