Good Thursday, everyone. We have a rather March-Like day going on across Kentucky as mild temps and gusty winds take center stage. This will be followed by a taste of winter for Friday. That taste, leads us into a full blown winter setup settling in next week and likely locking in for a while.
Let’s start with today’s crazy setup. We start things out with showers and a few thunderstorms across eastern Kentucky, but this moves away very quickly. Here are your radars to follow along…
Sunny skies quickly take control as temps surge into the 60-65 degree range for many. The atmosphere is also pretty wound up and will lead to winds gusting from 40-50mph into much of central and eastern Kentucky. This may cause some issues, including power hits.
Colder winds blow in from the northwest this evening as clouds move back in. This will lead to a few flurries and snow showers later tonight into Friday. The Future Radar from the HRRR shows this action through 7pm Friday…
A few flurries may linger into Saturday morning, but things improve very quickly through the day. Skies become partly sunny with near normal numbers.
Clouds will quickly increase late Saturday as our next storm system works in. This brngs rain and snow to the region late Saturday night through Sunday night. Exact precipitation types for any one location is a work in progress.
The Canadian certainly has a mixed bag…
The GFS has much more of a straight rain and snow look with the snow hugging the Ohio River…
The EURO…
The next system coming in behind that will create some of the same issues in terms of precipitation types being determined by the track of the low. This go around, you have more cold air coming in behind this with a snow system behind it…
EURO
CANADIAN
GFS
We know a cold pattern is unfolding and the signs of this have been there for a few weeks, at least. As we get closer, the signal for a snowier pattern is also showing up. The Ensembles continue to show some heftier totals setting up over the next 2 weeks…
I’ll have your normal updates later today. Make it a good one and take care.
Since that brutal cold snap around Christmas, we have had 22 days in a row of much above normal temperatures here in the Chicago area. So far this month, the temps have averaged over 11 degrees per day warmer than normal. Twelve of the 18 days have seen high temps in the 40s, with three of those days in the 50s. The coldest reading for the month has been 24 degrees.
Snowfall continues to be almost non-existent, with just 0.4 inches so far this month at O’Hare Airport (4.7 inches for the season), and 0.7 inches at the NWS Forecast Office in the SW Suburbs (6.9 inches for the season).
We are on pace to finish as one of the warmest and least snowiest Januarys ever unless we get that predicted cold snap next week.
fire in the hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank god for believers mark chesnutt.
Here in Maple we are expecting temperatures 20 degrees above normal today. Hoping we won’t receive a power failure due to the predicted high winds with the cold front coming through later this afternoon. Looks like on the various model forecast the accumulating Snows stay well north of our area thanks to the very strong Southeast Ridge. The teleconnections are forecast to become positive through the end of the month. If Winter is coming with cold and Snow it appears now it will be late.
That outlook and snow total does shows the fence. Not good for snow lovers, but better than big ice.