Good Friday, everyone. A few weeks back, I talked about the potential for seeing the first flakes before Halloween. Mother nature delivered the goods Thursday with snow and sleet showers across much of central and eastern Kentucky. Is this any indication of what’s to come this winter?
We’ve now had October snow in Kentucky for the third straight year. The past two years produced snows that I consider “fluke” snows like what we got from Sandy. The snow of this week is a product of the pattern as opposed to a fluke setup. This is likely a good sign for snow lovers as we get closer to winter.
Speaking of getting closer to winter… the latest computer generated analog years for the start of November look like this…
I normally take the top 5 years, but two of the years were on there twice, so I expanded it to the top 7. If we go back and look at those years, November featured a pretty big trough…
That trough REALLY deepened for the following December…
There’s a lot of cold showing up from the similar years to the one the models are forecasting for November 1st. While I’m not ready to put the winter forecast together… I will say this. I will be surprised if we get through this winter without setting record lows. Lexington hasn’t had a record low during the winter since February of 1996. I think that streak ends this winter. 😉
Ok… some quick thoughts on the short term weather.
Highs today will stay in the 40s under mainly sunny skies. Saturday starts frigid with temps in the 20s and ends with some clouds increasing and temps in the low 50s.
A cold front arrives Sunday with a reinforcing shot of chill…
That front may have a few showers with it, but a lot of the area will stay dry. Highs will be closer to the 50 degree mark with an improving afternoon sky.
We will mild it up for a few days early next week before we get in on a big storm system. How this all evolves is still to be determined, but the GFS has a lot of wind and rain with crashing temps…
Whatever happens with this storm system… it should be followed by another huge blast of cold as the jet stream takes a big dip…
Have a great day and take care.
Love seeing them early nineties showing up. The superstorm if 93′. Ohhhhhh if we could only see some real winter weather again.
By the way, it was snowing this evening in Harlan county this evening when I got off work.
TWC seems to be predicting some sort of severe weather event next Wednesday and on as Chris was suggesting some sort of big storm system. I hope it isn’t anything major. :/
NWS Nashville also mentions this chance in its Forecast Discussion, but the models are not in agreement at this time. So stay tuned!
True, the GFS is showing some indications for strong to maybe severe t-storms by about Wed. But the other models are not quite on board with this. Thus, the Storm Prediction Center is holding back on severe wx for the time being.
But this is a reminder that our area normally has a secondary tornado season in late fall, with F3/EF3 twisters having been recorded in October and F4s/EF4s in November (like the F4 that hit Madisonville KY in Nov 2005).
I’ll have to say that was an impressive call by Chris a few weeks ago for snow and cold in October. Currently 26 and still might drop a degree or two before sunrise here in Lawrenceburg. Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen snow in October here in quite some time.
No freeze here 36 degrees in knox
Now that its snowed, there’s already 5 comments by the time I check the blog every morning. Frost is everywhere here in Lexington, growing season has certainly ended. Was nice to see snow yesterday, has me excited for the upcoming winter.
Once again, the eastern half of the state seems to be hitting the low temps for the night around the 7AM mark instead of the usual middle of the night scenario (per Mesonet). Just dinged 28 in Madison.
Same here..just dropped to 24 in Lawrenceburg.
RIP tomatoe plants you were tasty this summer, now can we get some real snow before December?
The low was 26 here in Nashville TN, but with at least one reading of 22 on TN’s Cumberland Plateau. There was a bit of a breeze for some wind chill. Brrr…!
YIPPEE!!!! Let the fun and games begin. Seriously, thanks, Chris, for all you do. And for the update. We didn’t see snow here yesterday, but we did see a low on my back porch of 28 this morning. Hope we get to see some real snow this winter. Looking forward to your winter forecast. Sure would like for my granddaughter to see what a god old fashioned snow looks like! Have a great Friday, everyone!
Chris, I have a question. With the snow and cold weather arriving, how much of an upswing in visitation to your website do you get? You have an awesome website year round, but I wonder how many snowbirds show up at the first taste of winter.
It’s off the charts. The winter brings 1-2 million visits each month. By contrast, summer has roughly 250,000-400,000 visits a month.
I imagine that spring severe wx would be a close second. The 2012 tornadoes (Feb 29 and of course March 2) generated a tremendous number of messages even with CB necessarily starting new updated threads multiple times in a day.
Unless there is a major heat wave, a big hurricane off the coast (not much of either this year) or perhaps an enormous derecho, summer is relatively benign.
Must be especially challenging for a tv weather personality in coastal southern California to fight boredom during the summer. With a few exceptions, it’s the same calm wx for weeks or even months on end.
Thanks for the reply Chris!
I was looking back at my weather stats from last fall, the first flakes of snow in Frankfort were on December 10th, this year October 24th, a much earlier start on that note anyway!
Cool stat!! Thanks, Todd
You are welcome 🙂
I didn’t see any snow in Lawrenceburg in October or November last year either (despite it being a very cool autumn).
OK — We are off to the normal start. In my part of Richmond I saw three flakes in the air. That’s right 3. I was able to count them.
Today was a Mid December or Mid February day in Lawrenceburg. Low of 24; high of 47. I actually wouldn’t mind this year round, so long as its sunny. Crisp in the morning, but rather pleasant in the sun in the afternoon. Really enjoyed my jog and my outdoor “football” game with my six-year old son.
Temp is dropping like a rock however. As the sun is setting already down to 39. Looks like back to back mornings in the 20’s.
Its already several degrees colder now than it was this am
Hey Chris sounds like a wild ride for this winter remember my parents telling me about the winter in the 70s 1976 being a bad winter couldn’t go to school for a month be nice to see more snow least some big snows anyway. been picking up a lot of walnuts in the yard is that a sign of a bad winter for me I remember the “dusting” which we had 2 feet of snow I believe correct me if im wrong but 1996 or 1997 February
It’s relatively early, but already 29 this evening in Lewis County, KY along the Ohio River.
A balmy 44 here in Nashville, but can’t let that fool you. Temp expected to really bottom out…..down to 26 in the morning.
Freezing temps could occur as far south as Troy Alabama which is not that far from the Florida line. Parts of the Florida Panhandle could get frost.
Fairly impressive for this time of year.