Busy Week Ahead

Good afternoon! Chris Evans here with Zero Meter Chasers. Decided to fire up another blog to cover a busy weather pattern next week. It appears we will have 2 separate storms to track next week. Our first chance for wintry weather will come late Monday night into Tuesday morning with another chance next weekend. I want to break our first system down in a couple different timeframes. There is still time for some slight changes in exact placement and totals within the next 24 hours.

MONDAY NIGHT:

You can see precipitation starting in Western Kentucky at the start of this event around 9:00 PM on Monday night. You can see an area of snow breaking out along and north of the parkways, sleet just south of that and a cold rain in SOKY. There likely could be some mixing occurring at the start of this event along and south of the parkways as the low pressure scoots nearby.... This is shown well on the latest HRRR

This map is looking at our temperature profile at the start of our system Monday night and it shows a weak "warm nose" or warm air injecting into our atmosphere with the low pressure nearby.... There are times in a setup like this where if precipitation is falling hard enough it can overcome a weak "warm nose" by dynamically cooling and creating large wet snowflakes that come down in BUCKETS. This could also last a couple of hours until the low pressure scoots to our east so someone may see moderate snowfall while someone 5 miles south is stuck in sleet, it is one of THOSE type of setups.

Right now, this looks like it is most likely to happen along and just north of the parkways. Just south of the heaviest precipitation will likely be sleet and snow mixed. SOKY is looking at a cold rain at the BEGINNING of this event.

OVERNIGHT/EARLY TUESDAY

As the low pressure gets east of the area, cold air rushes in behind this system allowing for most of Kentucky to switch over to all snow. There does look to be a deformation band that is trying to be shown on models and that could help enhance totals a bit, if it comes to fruition. There is some decent banding showing up on the HRRR with 1" per hour snowfall rates possible during this timeframe. This will likely coat roadways as we head into Tuesday morning.

TUESDAY MORNING

We will likely have temperatures in the lower 30s on Tuesday morning allowing for some slick road conditions on Tuesday morning for many. Snow is out of here by mid-day Tuesday.

Model Snowfall Totals

First, before showing any snow maps I want to say models will struggle with a mixed precipitation scenario like we have tomorrow night. There could be someone within the same COUNTY seeing different precipitation types and that will help limit over accumulation with this system. This system is also a very fast moving system, which leads to higher confidence in lower totals. I will also say, deformation bands can easily produce 2-3" more than what models see with intense snowfall rates and we wont know exact placement of the deformation band until during the event.

HRRR Snowfall:

Canadian Snowfall:

EURO snowfall:

Almost all of the models agree that this is an advisory level snow for many along and north of the parkways. I would even argue that an advisory is possible all the way south to Bowling Green just due to possible travel impacts from the snow band early Tuesday morning. Amounts to me look to be in the 1-3" range with a possible stripe of 2-4" from wherever the deformation band sets up. Overall, nothing extremely major but a nice winter system to start the year!

LATE NEXT WEEK:

As we have been hinting at for a couple of weeks now, the weather pattern is really starting to ramp up as we get into December. IF you miss out on snow on Tuesday, you might not have to wait long to see another winter system next week.....

That is the Canadian model for next Friday through Saturday where it looks like we are going to have to track another system..... In this pattern, you have to take it one storm at a time!

We will have an official snow map out tonight for Kentucky, but as of right now I like a general 1-3" along and north of the BG/WK Parkways. Still think up to 1" is possible all the way south to Bowling Green from the lighter snow bands early Tuesday morning. There is a possibility that I will need to add a stripe of higher totals to tonight's map but just not confident enough in that yet.

This active weather pattern seems to be happening at the perfect time... BOTS!