Good Monday to one and all. We are just a week and change away from Christmas and our pattern is pretty darn soggy. But can we turn it snowy before we get to Christmas? That’s the question we are grappling with right now, but we have a chance.
Before we get to the forecast, let’s talk about where the month is, so far. The first half of December has been colder than normal for our region and much of the central and eastern sections of the country…
With another healthy cold blast coming into these same areas over the next week or so, it’s tough to imagine December winding up anything but colder than normal.
There’s nothing cold about the weather out there today as temps surge ahead of this latest rain system. Gusty winds may reach 40mph at times today as rounds of heavy rain and even some thunderstorms roll across the region. Local 1″-2″ amounts may show up through tonight, especially in the north and west.
Another big rainmaker moves in Tuesday night and Wednesday and may produce another inch or so as it moves through. Some areas may pick up nearly 3″ of rain through Wednesday…
The setup behind all this is very cold with a clipper arriving Friday with the chance for light snow and snow showers. The strong northwest flow behind that could keep some snow showers and flurries going through the weekend.
Here’s the GFS with this…
And the Euro…
The EURO is also showing the chance for some light snow and light rain with the next system by Christmas Eve…
In terms of putting a little light snow down before Christmas, the EURO gives us the best chance…
The GFS is seeing a little bit…
The GFS Ensembles are as well…
The pattern should flip milder for a bit right after Christmas before going back to winter right before the New Year.
The EURO Weeklies continue to advertise a pattern that looks cold and wintry for much of the eastern half of the country as we hit the new year. Check out the deep trough developing during the first week of January…
And the second week…
As we get farther out in time, signals on models naturally become weaker but you can see this trough still going into week 3…
This is one healthy winter signal showing up on the weeklies and it’s been there for some time now. With a lot of cold around, the weeklies suggest we get plenty of snow chances…
Again, that’s the average of about 50 different members that make up the Euro Weeklies.
I’ll have your normal updates later today so check back. Until then, here are your Monday heavy rain tracking tools…
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Have a great Monday and take care.
so I just looked at the yearly precip for Lexington becuase I haven’t in a while… it’s at 47.16 inches as I type this…. and yet, even with that, it’s still 0.61 below normal for the year. I’m thinking, “HUH”? I thought the yearly normal for Lexington was less than 47 inches… even though we’ve had years much wetter than were drier… maybe they had to increase the yearly normal because over the last decade or more we’ve had more wet years? Unless I dreamed it, I remember years ago looking at the average yearly precip and I thought I remembered it being like 44 or 45 inches
We are at 50.11 ” here in Taylor County.
NOAA data for Lexington YTD: Total annual precipitation 45.9 inches
Our PWS has YTD at 45.29”. Helene bounced it up with 2.5+” in one fell swoop.
for Lexington according to NOAA climate data
SINCE JAN 1 47.16(precip) Normal value 47.77 departure from normal-0.61 last year at this time: 40.30