Good Saturday, everyone. A major winter storm is set to slam the Bluegrass state Sunday and Monday. Significant amounts of snow, sleet and freezing rain are likely for Kentucky and surrounding areas during this time with bitterly cold air to follow.
Our Winter Storm Watch will likely be upgraded quickly today to a Winter Storm Warning for many with the chance for some to see an Ice Storm Warning. This map shows the current watches and warnings…
As you can see, this storm is set to impact millions of people from the Rockies to the east coast.
Here’s a breakdown of how things may play out:
SUNDAY
- Snow, sleet and freezing rain work into western Kentucky before daybreak and this spreads eastward.
- A heavy band of heavy snow is likely to set up in an arc that lifts from southwest to northeast.
- That band has the potential to put down several inches of snow in a short amount of time. Pinpointing where this band develops is the key.
- Sleet and freezing rain take over across southern Kentucky and that slowly lifts farther to the north.
- The far south sees temps spike with rain taking over by late day.
SUNDAY NIGHT
- Significant icing is likely into a large swath of the area as freezing rain looks fairly widespread.
- Sleet and snow will be located to the north of this into far northern Kentucky.
- Far southern Kentucky stays mainly rain.
- Winds gust up to 30mph as the low spins eastward along the Kentucky/Tennessee border.
MONDAY
- The day starts with freezing rain and sleet across the with light snow elsewhere.
- Strong upper-level energy spins from west to east across Kentucky through the day.
- This spawns a large swath of moderate to heavy snow for much of central and eastern Kentucky.
- Several additional inches of snow will be possible from this.
- Winds will also be gusting to 30mph at times.
So, what are we talking about in terms of total snow, freezing rain and sleet accumulations. The overall forecast is easy, but the details such as accumulations are a bear!!
I’m going to make changes to this through the day as new data provides a bit more clarity, but here’s the New Call for Ice and Snowfall…
As far as the models go, the EURO is steady as rock…
It continues to be running buddies with the Canadian Model…
The EURO certainly suggests that I need to up my snowfall numbers…
The freezing rain output continues to be very concerning…
It’ has some sleet, but the numbers aren’t as high as earlier runs…
The Canadian Model is in pretty good agreement but it’s just a bit farther south than the EURO. I’m not crazy about that southern hand of heavy snow showing up on this run…
That’s likely some feedback, but we shall see.
The Freezing Rain forecast from the Canadian is also troubling to see…
The Candian does have a lot more sleet…
The GFS continues to slowly sink a bit farther south with each run. If you recall, it started out showing snow only impacting the Cincy area and north a few days ago. Now it’s seeing the snow potential much farther south…
The GFS also has a ton of freezing rain, but it’s located farther north than the Euro and Canadian…
The same goes for the sleet forecast from the model…
The GFS really isn’t that far off from showing exactly what the EURO and Canadian models are showing.
I look at the UKMET and ICON during these times just to see where they stand with the placement and both are more in line with the EURO and Canadian models…
Here are some points I want to make with about this storm:
- This is a MAJOR winter storm that will be highly disruptive for our entire region.
- Travel issues will become widespread, and we may get into a situation where accidents force a brief closure of some roads.
- Power outages are very possible in this scenario. Significant ice coating trees and powerlines are bad enough but throw in 30mph winds and ugh.
- Keep in mind this is a two-day storm, and the forecast totals are for the entirety of the event… Sunday AND Monday.
- Temps make a run at zero or even below by Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
Another winter storm is possible from Thursday night through Saturday as another push of cold air drops in from the northwest and tries to phase with a storm system coming from the southwest.
The models are seeing more and more of these two trying to get together.
Here’s the GFS…
And the EURO…
I will be stopping by through the day for updates and I will be on WKYT-TV this evening. I leave you with your radars to follow our storm system in from the west…
Have a great Saturday and take care.
Here’s hoping it fizzles out.
Thanks Chris for your three daily updates. It really gets attention, so people can get prepared for the worse.
Jeff come to WKY and it might just fizzle there
Yep WKY was under a winter storm watch now it’s a winter weather advisory. We miss out again…..
Maybe the next storm will bring all Snow Russell.
I live in WKY they still have winter storm warnings out here, just more concern about the ice we may get. Ugh
it’s crazy how COLD it’s going to be way after this storm is over… If it stays like this the entire month so many people are going to be so sick of winter weather… It really doesn’t take but only dealing with a couple of weeks of it to become sick of it….. If you start getting tired of it… Just picture it: July, 97 degrees, humidity and crunchy brown dry gra-s-s during a drought… <———- @ Chris, it really is ridiculous to have to do that
Mark, a Farmer would not picture drought in his or her mine only a perfect growing season. I’m sick of this Winter regardless.
Crystal, I hope your reading this. I checked on indoor propane heaters, AND THEY ARE NOT SAFE !!! Hoping you will not receive this awful Ice and just receive some accumulating Snow on the back side of this Storm.
I was mistaken what was in my storage was a propane heater thing but for outdoors only. Odd looking but definitely outdoors. I had never lit one anyway. I hope it stays snow longer and not get the ice predicted. The people on this blog are the best Joe was going to help me. Schroeder my power lines are not under ground either.
Crystal, I had those propane heaters many years ago to heat my barn, and was warned that it could be deadly because of Carbon Monoxide emissions. All electric lines plus telephone lines should be burried. It should be illegal to have these lines on 19 century utility poles these days. My question is when are the Public Utilities going to join the 21st century ???
NWS Jackson map of ice..There relying on the GFS as they always do lol..Says other models are way overdone..Maybe there right..Hope so..
https://www.weather.gov/jkl/weatherstory
Click on forecast ice accumulation
Thanks for the information, and the maps showing a high potential for freezing rain in areas of the state.
My power company told me it would be too costly to bury the power lines. An example of putting MONEY before LIVES. I use to have utility poles leading up to my house. Not anymore, I had the power lines burried years ago, but we still have power failures even when the weather is clear. We shall see how they handle this storm, and if they made any improvements.
If we have that much Ice accumulation, there will be a lot of damage to trees falling and making a mess of my property, which cost me $ 10,000 dollars after the 2009 Ice Storm. If it happens agin, it’s up to Mother Nature to repair the damage and return it back to it’s natural beauty, which will take years.
Hoping models still have that north shift like they use to today.Looks like the latest Euro shifted north a little..I’ll be happy with all rain and some backside snow..NWS still has us in the watch area Dottie so maybe that’s a good thing for less ice..
That’s what I’m praying for WxWatcher!
That’s happy news. I hope it holds this time.
Thank you, Chris, as always. This setup looks extremely concerning all the way through the storm Friday and Saturday. That looks like an old-fashioned blizzard setup for SEKY and the temperatures are worrisome.
Snow lover here is hoping this moderates some. Stay safe, everyone.
75 days until spring.
I wish Spring was here, and no severe weather / tornadoes. A moderate drought would be fine, so the Farmers may get there planting done early. Don’t get me wrong. I love Snowy Winters, but not this kind of set up.
I agree with you Schroeder I’d much rather see the lines underground.
Crud….the purchase area of WKY it’s still just a wimpy weather advisory….
The power company usually trims trees adjacent to the power poles in my neighborhood, but they haven’t for several years. That’s a big problem because an individual power line could be broken in several places, making the tracing of an outage and repair take much longer. But what really worries me is potential damage to large, megavolt transmission lines. An outage on one of them could easily take out several counties!
Above all, stay safe everyone!