Good evening and Merry Christmas Eve. Our memorable Christmas weekend of weather continue to throw bitterly cold temps and snow showers/squalls at us. While we deal with this, I’m already focusing on another snow maker due in for Monday and early Tuesday.
Road conditions are still a mess and we continue to have numerous issues along the Interstates, Some parts of the Interstates remain closed this afternoon.
The bitter cold is also causing issues with rolling blackouts in place across the state because of the tremendous amount of energy we are using to stay warm. Check out this stat on the cold…
Lexington finally went above 0 this morning for the first time in 28 hours. The Kentucky Mesonet site hit 0 at 4am Friday and didn't get above 0 until 8am today.
This is one of the coldest periods ever recorded in Lexington. #kywx
— Chris Bailey (@Kentuckyweather) December 24, 2022
Again, this kind of sustained cold has only happened on a handful of times in recorded history.
My winter analogs strongly suggested a December bitter cold shot and I’ve been writing about this since August. In the past month, an intense signal started to show up for severe cold and I walked you guys through what I was seeing. In the past week, I REALLY started ramping up my concern.
Unfortunately, many in the local weather community went out of their way to downplay the severity of what was coming, and that includes our NWS offices. A culture change is sorely needed in a few offices in our region.
I’ll end it there and be nice because it’s Christmas. 🎄🎅❄️
Back to the weather of today. Snow showers and a few squalls are flying across the state. Here are your radars to follow along…
In terms of the system coming up Monday and Tuesday. It’s a clipper that will bring accumulating snow to the entire region. Areas along and just north of the track of the low should see the best snowfall chances. Here’s my First Call For Snowfall…
Again, the track of the low means everything, but this is another disruptive travel maker so plan accordingly.
The models are all over the place in terms of the track of the low and that shows up with the snowfall numbers and placement…
I’ll update that snow map later tonight.
The cold pattern breaks in a big way later next week as temps turn much milder before we get into a really soggy setup. Enjoy the break, the stage is set for another harsh winter pattern to develop late in week one or during week two of January.
Have a safe and Merry Christmas Eve. Take care.
cut bank montana hank jr song for evening.
we already knew you are the GOAT in weather, the bragging is as bad as the weather offices you call out. ACT LIKE YOU BEEN THERE is the old saying. we need start bailey boy a go fund me page. maybe somebody good with money copuld do this.
It’s crazy how a major event like we just had feels like it slows time down…A few days of bitter cold feels like 2 weeks have gone by
That is so true MarkLex.
Good luck with the NWS. There’s no accountability and the usual formula: Government = Apathy.
I think that the NWS was reacting to the potential for backlash from the retail industry. They were afraid that issuing warnings would end up killing business during the lasts days before Christmas, and if it didn’t materialize, that they would be blamed for lost sales.