Good evening, folks. It’s full steam ahead toward a big storm system set to impact our region from Tuesday night through Thursday morning. That unlocks a winter pattern that takes the country into the deep freeze in the week leading up to Christmas.
The breakdown hasn’t changed much:
- Heavy rain and gusty winds will move in for Tuesday night and Wednesday. Some thunder may be noted in the far west, but the strong storm threat is south of us.
- A powerful cold front sweeps through here Wednesday night and Thursday. This will initially dry our skies out as temps crash.
- Winds will be gusty and may top 40mph in the west as the front enters the picture.
- Ample low-level moisture under that upper level system will likely create rounds of light snow and flurries Friday and Saturday.
- Some light accumulations will be possible across central and eastern Kentucky. In terms of snowfall, this isn’t a big deal other than it’s a week before Christmas and we get some festive flakes.
Rainfall totals with the system moving in varies on the models, but they generally have 1″-3″ across the state…
The GFS continues to be alone in showing 5″ rain amounts…
In terms of the flakes behind this system, the EURO Ensembles show the areas with the best chance for getting in on the festive stuff…
I mentioned how the operational models are going to be all over the place after this system and they most certainly are. That said, we can see how they have an active pattern combining with the arctic attack coming from the north…
EURO
CANADIAN
GFS
So you can see how there’s no agreement with any of those runs. Heck, they don’t even agree with their prior runs.
The setup for severe cold continues next week and through early the following week…
CANADIAN ENSEMBLES
GFS ENSEMBLES
EUROPEAN ENSEMBLES
All the ensembles also show plenty of snow chances across our region and the country…
Enjoy the evening and take care.
It could become interesting next week.
Agreement may be reached on all models once the cold air is in place, but I haven’t ever seen so much real estate affected by an Arctic outbreak such as this potential one coming in a week or so. In January 1977 we had a week where the high temperature never got above zero.
The thing is, this series of troughs, each one colder and stronger than the last, confuses the heck out of the operational models, especially the GFS, with the Canadian being the more stable of the three that Chris mentioned, It seems like the NAM and the HRRR are more reliable in these conditions. That said, I’d be very surprised if we didn’t get measurable snow over the next 10 to 12 days!
I hope so Joe. I would like to see some of the white stuff especially near Christmas. It’s just aggravating for snow lovers it seems like when we get moisture it pulls the warm air seems like we can always get the rain but not the snow. Nothing we can do about it sure don’t envy Chris making a forecast where we live or any weather person but Chris is the best.
I agree, Crystal, weather forecasting these days is, in many ways, a thankless job, especially when your tools are spitting out conflicting information, and the fact that we are seeing conditions throughout the year that are unprecedented, makes that job so much more difficult. But one of the reasons why Chris succeeds where so many others do not is the fact that he puts a tremendous amount of effort (and time!!) into his forecasts. And on top of his on-air responsibilities, he must spend hours just putting this daily blog together!