Good Sunday evening. Heavy rains continue to pound much of the bluegrass state as a powerful cold front swings eastward. This front is causing temps to drop like a rock and that trend will continue across the central and east this evening and overnight. Some sleet and light snow have been reported west of Interstate 65 and some of that could work into the rest of the state overnight.
We will also need to keep an eye on the black ice possibility tonight. There is a ton of water out there and readings heading into the upper 20s means look out.
What happens after this? The cold front slows down just to our east and allows for two waves of low pressure to develop along it. The first wave comes later Monday into early Tuesday. The late afternoon model runs continue to trend a little stronger with this system and that means a better shot at some wintry weather. A mix of rain, snow and ice will be possible late Monday into Monday night.
The NAM shows a little bit of everything falling, but still tries to put down some light snow…
Again… the model is having a difficult time determining precipitation type. Let’s just call it a wintry mix at this point and figure it out later.
There could be similar system late Tuesday into Wednesday.
Several models have been showing a southern low developing toward the end of this week. The GFS Ensembles and the Canadian have been leading the charge on this. The new GFS is picking up on it…
We will need to keep an eye on that setup.
The massive dump of arctic air then dives in next weekend into the following week. There is no disagreement on the models with that aspect of it. Many of the models are also trending toward several snow systems to go along with the bitter cold…
That’s the European Model and it’s going the way of the Canadian runs of late. The Canadian Model has been doing very well of late.
Have a great evening and take care.
Thanks CB ! Hope to see at least some flakes fly tomorrow !
Thank, Chris. We are now in the midst of heavy rain, but I have no idea where the front is. Hope we can get some sustained cold and hopefully snow in here. Appreciate all you do for us.
Chris
What would out temperature be with that Bottom Euro???
What would that temperature be with that Bottom Euro???
its always either wet and warm or dry and cold…….:(
62 degrees and moderate rain in corbin at 6:43pm the front cant be far.thanks chris for the update!
So will tomorrow be the first “snow” day for Lexington?
Better chance than tonight at least.
The other day, a question was asked about what a “funnel system” was. Never heard of it, apparently “funnel system” was a more common term decades ago.
Cold air funnels were mentioned, albeit as a best available possibility pending a better answer. I’ll guess that funnel systems are much larger scale than of funnel clouds/twisters/cold air funnels.
http://www.paulpoteet.com/blog/2011/05/16/cold-air-funnels-over-the-weekend/
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/329/
I’ll guess “funnel system” was something along the lines of an “upper level disturbance” or a low.
CB, do you know? This term was said to have been used by predecessor meteorologists at your own tv station during the 1970s.
They had one of those on SyFy last night: Ice Twister!! It looked like the real deal, just like that scientifically 100% accurate Day After Tomorrow! ManBearPig approved 🙂
I watched Ice Twisters last night, too! When I wasn’t blowing my nose that is. Never seen it before. Dang, wouldn’t want those huge hailstones making crosshairs on my noggin ;).
I might take Ice Twisters as a tad more entertaining than Day After Tomorrow. But at least pigs are very delicious :).
Doing a quick search, there are lots of cool pics/videos of real life snowdevils and snowspouts.
If you got more time to kill, there’s an episode of Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman called “Kill Oscar” which has a stolen weather control device that goes out of control. I watched rerun of “Kill Oscar” as a kid during the 90s, dug it up a few months ago free on dailymotion.com. The evil scientist was played by none other than the one and only John Houseman.
Amazing how getting a resilient cold gives you so much time to kill, not use to it ;). Doesn’t help that my sports teams in both TN and KY (Tennessee Titans/Volunteers, WKU Hilltoppers, etc, I even cheered for UK basketball last season) ain’t doing so well, along with TN native Randell Cobb and the Packers getting an early exit from the playoffs :(.
Dang it, Randall Cobb. Can’t spell.
Hilltoppers? Really? EKU — big win over Murray followed by A whipping of Morehead. Next comes WKU. Wait, they won’t play Eastern anymore….
Graduated WKU about five years ago. Think my senior year was the finale for the WKU-EKU rivalry. Although WKU football ended the series with a win, EKU humiliated WKU the previous year IIRC.
Also remember during my senior year the Feb 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak. Some of the twisters came uncomfortably close to Bowling Green.
Better a warmer event with a mix, rather than a colder event and ice. Tis’ the lesser evil 😉
Could Richmond and other areas end up with less than 2″ of snow total over two winters- combined? Has that ever happened?
dont know if i remember that or not, but it seems like clay went one winter with around a half inch or something like that for a snow total for the winter. was in the mid 2000 sometime . cant remember which year it was.
we need a bubba buster. had my buster last winter when it snowed and stuck to the ground in the daytime, gave me 5 or 6 inches. that was feb 18th or 19th last year. i got a fooling that day, as i didnt think it could stick due to it being a daytime snow event. i thought it would melt. ive seen snow melt before in daytime with temps below 32 degrees.
with all this rain, it will be good to see if we got the leak fixed in the house. thats the only postive thing i can say about rain right now.
im actuallly looking foward to the cool down this week. hard to believe it was warmer in clay county kentucky then it was in houston tx today, it was 50 in houston and 58 in clay county when i checked a few hours ago.
i been reading a lot here more then posting, ive noticed that blizzard tim dont post anymore. i always liked reading his comments in the past here.
i still dont remember who made the 33 degree rule once. said 33 degrees and higher, we had lots of mosture to work with , 32 degrees and below, litte to no mosture to work with . that seems to be the case these days. rain with some small snow showers or flurries on the backside as the mosture leaves the area.
enjoy reading chris’ updates, and reading everyones comments here.
Why? A lot of moisture over Kentucky means above 32 degrees. It will be nice and dry when the cold air sets in 😉
I meant that as a joke, but not sure it really is…
I would just like to see some snow, but looks like it will miss Estill county again.
Temp “down to 40” here in lawrenceburg. It makes me laugh that this is considered a legit cold front in the heart of winter. That just shows how incredibly mild our weather has been. I still bet the average temp for this winter finishes in the Top 10 warmest. Will be only the second time since the 1870’s that has happened in consecutive years. One arctic outbreak won’t prevent that given all the mild air we’ve seen in December and January. And given the arctic outbreak isn’t coming till January 21 or so, the period from 1/21 to 2/28 will have to be BRUTAL to prevent a Top 10 warmest, not to mention getting the average winter temp down to normal.
Next week is a long ways away when it comes to forecasting the weather but I’m not ready to believe there will be a true arctic blast. I just have a feeling we’re going to have a few days with highs in the upper 20’s to around 30 and nightly lows in the mid teens with a quick warmup back to the 40’s and above. My 10 day forecast has only one day with a high below freezing and that’s a 28 degrees next Monday. As always, happy to be wrong but the cold fronts have been big underperformers so far this year. No reason for that to change.
Is Louisville missing the “big” mix tomorrow night? Not seeing any forecasts beyond partly sunny with rain periods. I am supposed to do some audits tomorrow night in the Lville area and will not head back to Richmond until after midnight.
Partly sunny tomorrow and a high of 39 degrees and clear tomorrow night with a low of 26 degrees. You shouldn’t have any problems. No rain or snow chances in our 10 day forecast but that can always change. I’m done waiting for next week and am ready to move on to spring. I really need the six feet of mud in my backyard to dry out. This winter just isn’t happening and so I’m hoping we can have a nice spring and a summer that isn’t as hot as last.
good see u back posting CHRIS G, glad ur back.
OLD SCHOOL coming folks, cry and cry all u want but at end of this month u look back say ROLO was right and BAILEY was right boyut REAL ARTIC AIR!!!
could care less about cold if we dont have snow
I second that Andy….Cold and dry is a as bad as cold rain. I do have to agree with ROLO….I feel and old skool thumping coming over the next few weeks. Just have to think positive and THINK SNOW!!!! If not, oh well Spring is just around the corner.
Rolo, I will need Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones to zap me with one of their memory erase pens before I buy into it. It will take an actual result before I bet against a very steady and absolute trend. Old school equals southern fed systems which have failed to produce snow save for some select areas.
Now, if you are referring to new school (Clippers) I can maybe, perhaps, kind of, in a way consider it. 6″ (average for the impacted area) event- tops.
I given old school less than 10% chance and new school less than 50%. An actual event would up those percentages for future events, AFTER an actual event were to happen.
Again, just one ACTUAL event trumps an infinite amount of snowy outlooks.
Thanks Chris for the updates! You are very appreciated by many! And love reading Bubba’s comments as well! Here’s to the winter weather that lies ahead…whenever and wherever that may be!
Sure could use a snow day in the northern portion of the state!
Wonder if us Clay Countians can actually be lucky enough for that snow map to pan out? I will settle for couple inches, beats a hand shake! lol 😛
Just rolled into Lexington from Chicago… our cold front came through early this morning and we drove through the backside of it around Indianapolis! Wow! What a ride. Had the Suburban in 4 Auto all the way from Hammond, IN to the northern side of Indy… more freezing rain than you could ever want… It was 26 degrees and raining so hard that we were creeping along at 25 mph. Crews got on it early, but the slush was thick. I’ll post some pics tomorrow. Going to bed!
Okay my other post just disappeared. Whats up with that?
where is the cold front now? It is still 57 deg and rain here!
Maybe I am missing something, but the NWS forecast for Nicholasville has no mention of precip at all through NEXT Sunday, and with the exception of tomorrow (38), every day is in the forties or higher…
I’m confused…do they not look at models, or do they just not believe them?
Feel fortunate you for now have less chances for icing. Some snow/sleet/freezing rain is still forecast by NWS just barely to your south and east including Somerset, Corbin, West Liberty. Of course, forecasts can and do change. But for now, according to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC), northern Louisiana may get some of the worst of the icing; from there the line of more significant freezing rain goes into southeastern KY.
As Chris Bailey touched on, any real Arctic cold won’t arrive until roughly a week from now. Until then, things are going from WAY above normal temps to near normal/somewhat above normal temps.
It’s a western cold front which will give us a zonal flow from west to east. Those aren’t very cold fronts and the setup usually keeps things dry and sunny with slow rises in temps.
i suspect they recognize the pattern and are throwing out any runs that get crazy with cold or snow. The pattern has been a warm one and we’ll, it’s not really going anywhere anytime soon. Remember, this big cold front was pretty strong but even when you drop 30 degrees from where we were you’re still sitting right around average for tomorrow with above starting Tuesday. The much hyped arctic outbreak is still ‘a week away’ but arctic in 2013 now means highs around 28 for a day or so and some chilliy but not cold nights of upper teens. Anything that much colder and you pretty much need snow on the ground, something we are really lacking in as of now.
Forgot to post the link:
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?map.x=58&map.y=103&site=jkl&zmx=1&zmy=1
temp has dropped 7 deg in the last 30 mins. getting very windy!
I imagine there will be plenty of snow in a few days here in WV. I do wish Kentucky could take it all but that never happens.
Thanks Chris!