Good Sunday to one and all. Here is hoping the blog finds you running on schedule today and not showing up an hour early to everything. That little thing called Standard Time returned at 2am this morning so your clocks should be an hour behind where they were this time yesterday. 
I was trying to think of a cool way to transition from that into talking about weather… but i’m just not feeling it right now. I know… that begs the question… Do I actually have such skills to do so on any given day. That is highly debatable. 
Let’s just jump right into it.
Our first brush with wintry weather has come and gone. Many areas saw their first flakes of the season from Friday into early Saturday. That includes some of the bigger cities such as Lexington. Don’t tell that to the NWS as their climate report says the flakes were a figment of your imagination. ****must resist the urge**** Ok.. I fought it off. haha Many areas actually picked up that coating we talked about. The higher elevations of southeastern Kentucky did the best with this setup.
Here are a couple of cool pics from our friend Jared from Letcher County…
That last image shows just how much elevation matters. The valleys show nothing on the ground with the mountain tops whitened by their first blanket of snow. That is a GREAT pic!!
Today will start off with very cold temps… especially across the east where readings will dip into the lower 20s in some spots. Here is a map showing the morning lows…
Sunny skies will be with us today as temps spike up to near 50 in the east and low 60s west. Those 60s will take over our pattern in the coming days as we get into a much warmer air mass. This will be short lived as we see a major pattern change taking place next weekend into the following week that will attempt to unleash winter upon much of the country. This is a pattern that will see very cold air engulfing much of the country with a southern jet stream that may crank up.
The GFS Ensemble mean shows the forecast temp anomalies and what a drastic change that may be in the not too distant future…
That is a COLD pattern showing up on the long range models and one that should carry us through Thanksgiving into early December.
Have a great Sunday and take care.
24 at cvg this morning coldest morning yet. I am all for a cold pattern as long as the pattern includes some good snows and as long as we dont use up all our cold be for snow before jan-march. my gut is telling me this winter should be swell!!
😉 i like the maps all the same though! i just do not want to use too much cold in the fall it seems around here atleast that the pattern in winter goes from above to below normal so often and the cold gets balanced out often.
Hey Chris,
I see the first La Nina pattern setting in for next weekend. SPC long range forcast has higher than normal precipitation Dec-Feb for Louisville,KY. Is La Nina going to be with us all winter? If don’t see your answer right away, I’ll be changing the oil in my snow blower!
I saw snow that was between a dusting and a half inch on the ground in Winchester and it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. I even have a pic of it coming down. MJ, if you see this, please go correct the records.
Well, I saw snow Friday night..!
Was at the Lafayette football game and it was a good mix of snow/rain.
Woke up Saturday morning and my deck had a slight dusting…
Hey gang..!!! Missed you guys this summer. Hope everyone had a blast…
I took my first trip to Japan, and it happened to be the hottest summer in 127 years in Japan, (so I was told)…
Beautiful country, but man I was glad to get back to the good ole’ USA..!
…
23f at my house in Nicholasville. As cold as we got we only saw some sleet and flurries. I guess it is a start. The 23f at least gave me something to talk about on my blog as my Banana Tree’s are done for. They are in a sad state with their leaves just hanging on them.
Thanks, Chris. We had a huge frost on here this morning! And temps in the upper 20s. beautiful sunshine now, but still pretty cool.
Interesting forecast for this week….thinking we might get out the outside decorations nad maybe put them up while the weather wants to be more cooperative…(lot easier to put up when its 60 than when its 30) 😉
Haven’t decided, but, if the weather stays that nice, who knows, we may be mowing the yard one more time and then putting up Christmas decorations….on Friday. (don’t worry, they will NOT get turned on until the night after Thanksgiving!)
Loved the snow pictures! Didn’t see it here, but we did see a whale of a sleet shower that lasted for about 15-20 minutes where I was. Hopefully, we will see a good one this winter. Right now, gonna enjoy the sunshine! Have a GREAT Sunday!
I never saw any flakes in Lexington but there were several hours that I didn’t have a view out a window, so it could have………
I think the sub-freezing temps do help clean the air, but RAIN is the best air cleaner.
The Lexington records are correct. The Lexington observation from Friday night at 11 PM did report unknown precipitation. We called the snow observers who are now at the Lexington airport 24/7, and they reported no snowfall. Therefore, since there was no snowfall at the airport, the snowfall for the day is zero.
That is not to say that we did NOT have snowfall in the Lexington area. There were many reports of light snow in the Bluegrass region. Let me clear things up before we get into the winter season. Snowfall for a city is mesasured at a POINT…not across an area. That point for Lexington is Bluegrass Airport. If it snows 3 inches downtown and Bluegrass Field gets 1 inch (which can happen), the official report for Lexington is 1 inch. Snow observations have always been taken this way. Its the same way here in Louisville. What ever falls at Standiford…is the official for the city.
The good news is that Lexington now has snow observers that are located at the airport and are on duty 24/7. They have been trained by the FAA and NWS on snow observations. They report snowfall every 6 hours as required. Last year, we had good, quality data from them. If it snows in Lexington, it gets recorded.
The Lexington records are correct. The Lexington observation from Friday night at 11 PM did report unknown precipitation. We called the snow observers who are now at the Lexington airport 24/7, and they reported no snowfall. Therefore, since there was no snowfall at the airport, the snowfall for the day is zero.
That is not to say that we did NOT have snowfall in the Lexington area. There were many reports of light snow in the Bluegrass region. Let me clear things up before we get into the winter season. Snowfall for a city is mesasured at a POINT…not across an area. That point for Lexington is Bluegrass Airport. If it snows 3 inches downtown and Bluegrass Field gets 1 inch (which can happen), the official report for Lexington is 1 inch. Snow observations have always been taken this way. Its the same way here in Louisville. What ever falls at Standiford…is the official for the city.
The good news is that Lexington now has snow observers that are located at the airport and are on duty 24/7. They have been trained by the FAA and NWS on snow observations. They report snowfall every 6 hours as required. Last year, we had good, quality data from them. If it snows in Lexington, it gets recorded.
The Lexington records are correct. The Lexington observation from Friday night at 11 PM did report unknown precipitation. We called the snow observers who are now at the Lexington airport 24/7, and they reported no snowfall. Therefore, since there was no snowfall at the airport, the snowfall for the day is zero.
That is not to say that we did NOT have snowfall in the Lexington area. There were many reports of light snow in the Bluegrass region. Let me clear things up before we get into the winter season. Snowfall for a city is mesasured at a POINT…not across an area. That point for Lexington is Bluegrass Airport. If it snows 3 inches downtown and Bluegrass Field gets 1 inch (which can happen), the official report for Lexington is 1 inch. Snow observations have always been taken this way. Its the same way here in Louisville. What ever falls at Standiford…is the official for the city.
The good news is that Lexington now has snow observers that are located at the airport and are on duty 24/7. They have been trained by the FAA and NWS on snow observations. They report snowfall every 6 hours as required. Last year, we had good, quality data from them. If it snows in Lexington, it gets recorded.
The Lexington snowfall amount for Friday is correct. I’ve tried posting the explanation but keep getting moderated. Go figure. Perhaps it will show up at some point.
I remember you saying a while ago that NWS Louisville measures Lexington’s snowfall in northern Lexington not the Bluegrass Airport like most of us thought. (hence the disparity with some winter storms with sharp cutoffs)
I’ve been curious as to where NWS Wilmington measures Cincinnati’s snowfall. I’m guessing it’s probably not at the airport, maybe NE Cincinnati?
Figment of my imagination? I know what I saw friday night. Lexington had rain, to sleet, to a few flakes mixed in, granted it didnt last long. But it had to be a good 10-15 minutes. Can’t be sure of the total time it lasted because I went back inside. If the snow was a “figment of my imagination”. Then global warming is definetly a figment of their(NWS’) imagination. Hey you know what? Its actually been proven that global warming is a figment of their(NWS’s) imagination. LOL! Good thing there are real meteorologist out there like you Chris! Thank you for all you do!
Well we had snow showers here just north of Hazard. I looked out once to see sleet pouring down.
You got moderated? Wow. Now I don’t feel so bad after all the times I have been moderated, never knowing if the post will eventually show up or not.
I’ve been sent too moderation so many times I’ve stopped posting.
Sad really, I liked this site back in the day.
Vinny….Almost everytime I try to post these days it goes into moderation! And yes we did have a fun weather family in those days, didn’t we?
Guys i miss the old blog to I never post a comment
That is correct. However, we worked out a deal to get some folks over at the airport to do it. They’ve been doing it since 2009. Cincy’s snowfall is probably measured at CVG by ASOS augmenters. ASOS is monitored by people 24/7 at the major airports to supplement additional information into the observations.
Yeah, I did. But I also sent Chris an e-mail and he was cool about getting comment out. I appreciate that.
Revamped blog in the works to take care of this silly moderation problem. I know it’s frustrating to you guys and it is about to drive me crazy. There is NO reason for any comment to go into moderation.
Vinny, Marsha, Patty, I miss all of ya’ll, I’m still here reading too. When I do comment it goes to moderation or get someone with a smart mouth to chime in so I just stopped. I’ll be happy if the new “BLOG” just has a like button that way I dont have to comment, but can “LIKE” something! 🙂
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