Good Friday, everyone. A major winter storm is on the way to Kentucky Sunday into Monday, bringing significant amounts of snow, sleet and freezing rain to the region. This is part of a very harsh winter pattern that is just getting started.
We are starting our Friday with a light snow maker rolling through central and eastern Kentucky. This is putting down some light accumulations with snow showers and flurries ready to follow later today. I have your tracking tools at the end of this post.
A Winter Storm Watch for Sunday and Monday was issued yesterday for much of the area and many more counties will be added to this today. Here’s a look at all the real estate under the Winter Storm Watch…
Much of that will soon be upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning and even an Ice Storm Warning for some.
As of this writing, there is a definitive trend for a farther south tracking system, putting more of Kentucky in line for some of the heavier snows. This is a trend that started showing up earlier with the Canadian Model and now other models are catching on. The trend is also there for higher precipitation totals for all forms of precipitation.
Here’s the latest t from early Sunday morning through Tuesday afternoon…
Her’s the snow map from the Canadian through that same period….
The model continues to show significant amounts of freezing rain and is focusing this farther south now…
Some impressive sleet totals are also showing up…
The EURO also trended farther south and is pretty much spot on with the Canadian…
Here’s the Snowfall from the EURO…
The EURO is also showing the potential for a major ice storm that focuses south of Interstate 64…
The sleet numbers aren’t as impressive as the Canadian…
Then we have the GFS. The GFS was actually correcting straight toward the Euro and Canadian Models before the low did some crazy loop back to the northwest. Watch the low jump from south central Kentucky all the way back into southern Illinois…
That’s the GFS being the GFS and, once it takes away that crazy jump, it will even out toward the other models.
The absurdity of the GFS shows up in the snowfall forecast across Illinois and Indiana…
Even with the bad data, the GFS did trend farther south with the snow in Kentucky.
The Freezing Rain forecast from the GFS is too far north…
So is the sleet…
The UKMET also came farther south resulting in more snow and ice…
The snowfall map is likely contaminated by the ice and sleet, pushing things too high…
The latest EURO Ensembles have also trended farther south with the snow and ice. This snowfall map is based on a 10-1 ratio and is the average of 51 different members of the EURO Ensembles…
The average of the 21 different members of the Canadian Ensembles also danced to the south…
The overall moral of the story has not changed… This is a MAJOR winter storm set to impact Kentucky with significant amounts of snow, sleet and freezing rain.
I will have a First Call for Ice and Snowfall out later today.
Bitterly cold temps come in behind this with the chance for temps to reach zero or below, especially by Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
I’ve talked about the potential for next Friday and Saturday and the models are starting to see more and more of this. One system drops in from the northwest and tries to merge with a southern stream winter storm…
GFS
The AI version of the EURO doesn’t show precipitation types, but it shows our storm…
I’ll be back with your usual updates later today. Until then, here are your radars to track today’s round of light snow and the snow showers and flurries that follow…
Have a fantastic Friday and take care.
My least favorite form of precip is sleet…but that would save headaches of an ice storm. I’m talking about the beauty of a winter storm. Sleet is just so ugly and doesn’t accumulate well.. Ice storms are beautiful but so awful at the same time… and of course snow is the favorite…..
Speaking of the storms lining up. It made me think of what my grandma told me growing up in western NC… She said in the 60s there was a winter that it snowed every Wednsday.. she said it was crazy…Like for weeks on Wednesday’s it snowed that winter. That was one of their better winters.. whatever year that was.
Mark, that year where we had training Snowstorms was 1969 -70. Best and most exciting Winter that I can remember. Sleet is better than freezing rain. Sleet bounces and doesn’t bring tree limbs down and power lines.
I hate it.
Scary times..Hopefully it keeps trending colder with no ice..
https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=rdps&p=zr_acc-imp&rh=2025010306&fh=84&r=us_ov&dpdt=&mc=
We don’t need a repeat of 2009
Russell, the Ice Storm in 2009 occured later in January, and was the worse one in my entire life.
I think the reason I’ve always thought the ice storm in 2003 was worse is because I was living alone during that one. I was without power for close to a month and was one of the last houses to get power back on. My anxiety with this forecast is really kicking in.
Mine too Dottie. Be glad when Spring arrives. Then we will have severe weather / tornado anxiety. One just can’t be comfortable in this awful climate we have these days.
I think the one in 2003 didn’t go south of the KY river… immediately when you crossed that river, it was pure insanity…the worst ice storm I’ve ever seen. 2009 was NOTHING compared to that in Lexington. In fact, I remember 2009, at least here, being a LOT of sleet and just some freezing rain…but NOTHING like 2003. Imagine temp hovering at 31 degrees and absolutely pouring rain for hours and hours…like 2 inches of rain or more.. roads weren’t slick.. it stuck to everything but the roads…that was the worst experience of my life as far as weather goes.
I remember that first night hearing transformers blowing and trees crashing. It was horrible. The mast head on my house was damaged so I had to wait until it could be repaired before I got my power back.
Rgem usually pretty good in this range, brings ice storm to southern Kentucky. Hope it’s wrong
All I’m praying it be all snow, hopefully it keeps trending more south to be all snow.
Please no ice. 2009 was horrific. It was a week before I could get off the farm. 10 days without power.
Thank you Chris for all you do for us on this blog.
It’s that darn high pressure to our south, warm moist air overriding the cold air at the surface. Typical La Nina Winter.
I was looking at Chris’s weathercams, and there is Snow on the ground in Jenkins and it is Snowing heavy in the Pine Mountain region. These areas really receive Snows from Clipper systems. I may be wrong, but I heard once that Ice Storms never occur in the Mountain areas of the state.