Good evening once again. I wanted to drop in with a quick update to get you guys a few maps from the afternoon model runs. This should tide you over until I get a look at the new runs that will be coming out over the next few hours. It is with the overnight update that I will get a new map out showing my latest thoughts on who gets what and how much from this winter storm.

Let’s take a look at how the NAM shows the progression of the precipitation moving in…


You can see the NAM shows a quick and hard hitting storm that is in and out of town in a matter of 12-18 hours for any one location. The model shows the majority of the heaviest precipitation falling as snow and freezing rain for much of the state with only a switch to some light rain across the south late in the event. By then… the heaviest precip has moved off to our east.

The 18z run of the NAM I look at does not have an ice accumulation map… but it does have a snowfall map. I have pieced together the NAM and GFS snowfall maps from their latest runs and even threw in the GFS Freezing rain accumulation map…



You can see right off the bat the models agree on a northwest to southeast oriented band of accumulating snows on the tune of 1″ to nearly 6″. They do differ a bit on the placement of the snows and that is something they should find common ground with by early Wednesday. They are also different on the amount of snows and that is because the GFS shows mixing getting farther north cutting down on the snow totals. The NAM has also been a wetter model than the GFS as well.

You can see on the GFS that it is spitting out freezing rain for a lot of people and is showing a major ice storm for the southeast. I suspect if we could see the NAM ice map it would show quite a bit more across central Kentucky.

I know many people are asking if this is going to be as bad as the Ice storm of 2009 or 2003 and the short answer is no. Those were historic, long lasting ice storms. This one will be more of a quick hitter, but will still pack a heck of a punch and can cause some significant problems for many areas.

I will have a full update later tonight so be sure to check back. I will also send out some thoughts via twitter. Have a great evening and take care.