Good evening everyone. We continue to be in Winter Storm Threat mode for Thursday into early Friday as things continue to progress nicely toward a storm putting down several inches of snow. There is a very strong chance we upgrade to ALERT status tomorrow.

The folks at the NWS offices are trying to get ahead of the game with some watches and advisories…



A couple of thoughts about that map…

– I think the watch from the NWS Louisville is too far west and north and should extend all the way into the Lexington Metro.

– The entire map will fill in with watches then warnings and advisories later tonight into Wednesday.

– I am not a fan of the “lead time” in putting out watches and advisories. Not at all actually. I think it’s silly and causes more confusion for the general public. Most people get their weather in passing without reading forecasts or discussions. To the casual weather watcher in the counties that are not listed in a watch or advisory… they will look at that map and say… well the snow isn’t going to hit my area. That is certainly not the case… but it’s what people will be thinking. My question is… if you know you are going to issue a watch or advisory for the entire region… why select only a few counties to put those out now then fill in the rest of the region 12 hours later?  This is not a bash… but I honestly have never understood the whole criteria and lead time argument when it comes to winter weather events. There… I feel much better.

The First Call For Snowfall map looks to be in good shape at the moment…


I may have to add a stripe of higher totals near the far northern Kentucky area. I will make that call later tonight.

A few more thoughts…

– The models are suggesting a streak of light snow breaks out across parts of the state late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Western Kentucky into much of central and northern parts of the state will be the favored areas to pick up some light accumulations early Thursday.

– A wall of snow will work eastward across the state late Thursday into Thursday night. This will be a quick and hard hitting snow and should provide a period of the heaviest snow of the winter. It is from this batch that we get the bulk of the accumulations.

– Snow will rapidly end from west to east early Friday morning with a few flurries and snow showers possible. There really isn’t much of an upslope flow behind this storm.

– Arctic air will then filter in for Friday with temps struggling to get out of the teens. Friday night looks COLD with lows approaching 0. Brrrrr.

– A flurry or very light snow maker will try to move in this weekend with a bigger system developing for early next week. That one is really showing up on my radar!

I may try to update again late this evening… but will have a full update coming your way later tonight. Have a great evening and take care.