Good Sunday to one and all. It’s a better weather day taking shape across Kentucky, but the nice weather isn’t sticking around very long. A busy pattern is on the way for Thanksgiving week and weekend, and it may bring rain, snow and arctic cold into our part of the world.
Milder temps surge in today with temps in the 50s with a mix of clouds and some sun. This milder air takes us into Monday and is ahead of a potent cold front sweeping across the state Monday night with numerous showers and the chance for some thunder…
Much colder air crashes in behind this for Tuesday with highs back into the low and middle 40s. Gusty winds will make it feel much colder.
From here, we focus on a storm system rolling our way from the southwest. This should roll across the lower Ohio Valley or Tennessee Valley, with the exact track being the difference maker in rain/snow or mix for late Wednesday into Thanksgiving. Regardless of which precipitation type happens during this time, much colder air on a northwest wind should be able to spit out some snow showers and flurries Thanksgiving night into Black Friday.
Another flake maker should arrive at some point over the weekend. All of this is just ahead of arctic air surging in to start December.
We continue to find the models bouncing around a bit with how strong of a Thanksgiving system we will be dealing with and where to track it.
The GFS has been pretty inconsistent over the past few days. The latest run has more of suppressed look with our Thanksgiving system. This animation goes from Wednesday through December 3rd..
The arctic air coming in behind this is pretty wild. Just check out those temperature departures from normal through December 3…
The Canadian Model is also a bit south with the Thanksgiving system but has more flakes for Friday and a stronger snow system behind that…
Check out the temperature departures on the Canadian through…
The EURO continues to be farther north and stronger with the Thanksgiving storm but is weaker with the system behind it…
The EURO is also all in on the arctic cold and WELL below normal temps to end November and start December…
This type of cold has a chance to see lows reach the single digits and challenge record lows for early December. Below zero wind chills could also become a player.
The extreme cold should relax for a day or two after that, but it’s reloading with additional systems dropping in from the northwest. We may actually get into a pattern featuring some honest to goodness clippers for the first time in a long time.
Check out the look of the EURO from December 4-8…
Oh and those crazy below normal numbers return…
The EURO Weeklies over the next 30 days continue to show a trough in the east with a massive ridge along the west coast into Alaska. This 30 day average goes through Christmas Day…
I’ll be back for another update later today. Make it a good one and take care.
Thanks Chris. Another well detailed Blog this morning. Very informative, as to what may occur in temperatures and precipitation leading into Thanksgiving, and the first week of December. This year has really gone by very quickly. Hard to believe it’s almost 2025.
Have a Restful Sunday Everyone !
The rapid changes highlighted in the current update bring out how badly the forecast models are performing. This is especially true when you consider what the 5-day outlook shows today, compared to the 7 to 14-day outlook. It is obvious to me that the accuracy of forecasts from all of the models falls dramatically when you get three or more days out. It appears that the data their algorithms are asked to process is not what was considered normal input data when the programs were written. It is sort of like how a machine for making orange juice would react if grapes were fed into the system. You’re still expecting to see OJ, but what comes out is radically different.
Excellent post Joe. I don’t know that much about model forecasting, but I continue to learn. I just looked at NOAA’s 6 to 10 and 8 to 14 day outlooks, and there’s a good chance of much below normal temperatures and below normal precipitation through the period. Cold and dry agin, with some breaks in the pattern.
Here’s a link to the summary of the Chicago area’s first snowfall of the season this past Thursday, which saw most areas get between 2 and 3 inches: https://weather.gov/lot/2024_11_21_Snow
Temps are more seasonable today, well into the 40s, but it is going to be so cold by next weekend, like all the computer models are showing.
Mike. Sounds like a nice first Snowfall. All we had here was a half hour Snow shower. In Southeast Kentucky ( Pine Mountain ) got a decent Snowfall.