1. A few mesonet sites across southern Kentucky picked up trace amounts of snow last night, most places stayed just cloudy.
2. this is really the first time this season we have to talk about a wintertime evil known as WAA. with the low track overhead Mon-Tue we should see a quick period of snow Monday night followed by a cloudy and dreary Tuesday with temperatures above 32*F regionwide. my early thinking is that most of us see a period of light snow monday night with an inch or so for the bluegrass and southeast ky with 1-3 inches for the northeast. umm the snowpack is getting pretty deep in Covington and Ashland.
3. I’m not even saying the I word for Christmas eve but the 12z gfs goes in that direction. I thought the grinch storm was a few years ago with a 40* cold rain over an inch on christmas day let’s not top that. snow showers are likely on christmas day regionwide. right now the ecmwf has been going back and forth for several runs now with the gfs more consistent on the late week system.
Central and Eastern Kentucky Weather 
December 18, 2010 at 3:17 pm |
12z gfs trended a bit colder with clipper. Still everybody in Kentucky goes over to rain at some point. Nam is warmer. It seems from the maps like some gulf moisture must be providing the WAA for the clipper.
As for the Christmas storm, it seems like it wants to go lakes cutter. I can just tell that by the way the freezing line drops vertically as the storm passes.
December 18, 2010 at 8:48 pm |
the clipper is mainly as described above a non-event for most and snow north. I think everyone gets well into the 30’s Tuesday. The Christmas storm is one to keep an eye on as I’m seeing a very favorable synoptic set-up for a sizeable snowfall in kentucky Thu-fri through the both the gfs and ecmwf. High pressure should be established over the western great lakes as week low pressure which will limit waa as it moves across the south. stay tuned on this one the 18z gfs gives everyone a very merry christmas with up to 10 inches of snow. A track from the southwest through the deep south such as what is currently modeled has many times given a regionwide 3-6 or 4-8. This will not be a lakes cutter, high pressure of arctic orgin should be established over the lakes which tends to enforce cold air and keep the storm track south.
December 18, 2010 at 10:42 pm |
Yeah, I guess with all of that snowpack in the GL it won’t be a lakes cutter.
Hopefully the christmas storm won’t be a Dec 2004 redux either for central parts of the state. Any similarities to that storm in the modeling?
December 18, 2010 at 11:16 pm |
no, dec 04 storm the jet was extremely amplified leading to a south to north track with extreme temperature differences. This system will be a much flatter wave with a much smaller temperature spread across the state. Also this system will be quite a bit weaker.
December 18, 2010 at 11:53 pm |
Thanks Mitch! Glad to hear it’s not going to be like that 2004 storm.