Somewhere along the way we’ve changed a paradigm.  When you look at some of our meteorological parameters (what we actually do back here to forecast which makes the finshed product you’re used to seeing) it has been screaming that a shot of at least polar if not some modifed Arctic air was poised to come in for a quick hit this weekend.    We look at something called the 1000-500mb thickness as a measure of temperature in the atmosphere.  As a guideline, 540 is usually the rain/snow line.  We actually go into the low 530s Saturday with the possibility of precip, but it’s going to be nearly all rain.  You could expect that in March, but usually not in the heart of ‘winter’.  On Sunday what should be Arctic (or at least something close to it) air with thicknesses down to almost 522 dm here…

This is for Sunday morning.  We’ve been forecasting cold based on these parameters.  Now, let’s look at where this air is coming from…actual data…

The numbers may be hard to read, but it’s an even freezing on the north shore of Lake Superior…in the mid 20′s all the way to the central parts of Manitoa and Saskatchewan with the only truly cold air in the northern parts of those provinces and the brutal air is sitting in the Northwest Territory. 

So we’ve got a cold front orginating where the air in Canada is in the 20′s and that will modify greatly by the time it gets here.

And next week…here we go again with another big warm up which will take us to the beginning of February and the final month of meteorological winter.  Could there be a big finish?  Sure it’s a possibility, but not a good one.  Remember what the character of the entire winter has been…ridiculously warm and wet.  Even if there is a week or 2 where it actually gets cold and heaven forbid it actually snows doesn’t take away from the ludicrous proclamations at the beginning of the season proclaiming ‘The Worst Winter Ever…” 

One other bit of internal business.  On this date 13 years ago your friendly neighborhood weatherguy arrived in the Bluegrass and fell in love (of course you circled the date on your calendar back in 1999!).  Without your support my family and I would not have been able to call this wonderful place home for so long, so for that…a truly heartfelt   THANK YOU.

So with that, enjoy your weekend.

We just checked again with spacewether.com and it appears the magnetic storm may be declining. The latest planetary K index (see earlier post) has dropped back to 3 indicating that northern lights are now increasingly UNLIKELY this far south. You can track the progress on spaceweather.

The Earth is the midst of the strongest magnetic storm since 2003 caused by a strong solar flare that sent a coronal mass ejection away from the sun and toward Earth.  Basically the sun burped a mass of charged particles that are now intersecting with our magnetic field which then causes it to glow similar to a neon light.  Something called the planetary K index is now at 5 which means the northern lights may be as far south as Michgan  http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/kp.html   If the storm intensifies any more, we may…MAY…be able to see them later tonight.

Well what’s another weekend of winter thunderstorms…

From our ‘Fun Facts to Know and Tell’ department…

Since the beginning of meteorological winter we’ve only had 3 days with accumulating snowfall leading to our whopping 1.1″ so far…still on a record pace if you’re keeping score at home.

In contrast, with this morning’s storms that makes 4 days with thunder being heard.  An amazing contrast, but something that really tells the story of this winter to date.

There are some signs that at least something resembling more traditional winter may be in the future.  First off, the national snow cover has increased pretty dramatically in the last couple of weeks.

We’re seeing over 40% of the country with snowcover now and we’re only 5% off of last year at this point.

So what does that mean…well first off the winter is trying to catch up, even if we haven’t seen it.  It will also allow more of a clear path for cold air masses to move down unmodified from the north.  There has been plenty of cold…in fact extreme amounts of it across the nothern part of the continent…but every time a piece has broken off, the previous lack of snow cover allowed the airmasses to modify greatly. 

Also, the cold has been transitory…it hits for a day or 2 then leaves.  We’ve got one of those coming up again this weekend.  Even looking out to about 10 days…which as always is model fantasyland…there just doesn’t seem to be a look of cold that can hold…which does get us into February…otherwise known as the 2/3 point of met.win.

So before that…we have another significant rainmaker coming in Wednesday PM into Friday…and it’s all rain.  We have at least a chance of some winter fun and games this weekend…but that’s also looking iffy…and we’ll talk more about those possibilities as we get closer.

So with all that…just remember that 49 years ago Tuesday morning it was 21 BELOW zero.

And enjoy your Tuesday.

Hard to believe 18 years ago this morning it was 37 BELOW zero in Shelbyville.  It was part an historic dump of Arctic air that set several state records (including Kentucky’s).  This year we’re just normal…highs in the low 40′s and lows in the 20′s.

We’ve got a front coming through tonight which will be putting the brakes on somewhere around Lake Cumberland waiting for a wave to scoot up it.  That wave will bring some rain late Friday-Friday night and into Saturday.  For us, it looks like it will be all rain.  Not far away there could be some winter mischief, but that will be on the other side of the Ohio as colder air will be holding on…this looks to be just above Cincy and Louisville tomorrow night.

This all clears out Saturday setting the stage for a big low coming out of the Plains Sunday into Monday.  It will launch some really warm air up this way with a good south wind Sunday with highs into the 50′s.  Unfortunately thunderstorms may be part of this equation Sunday night and Monday depending on the exact speed of the system.  What may also be part is a small chance for a quick changeover to snow as the system departs late Monday.  This will also depend on some timing which is just too far off to pinpont. 

The cold shot with this system will also be very quick…likely less than 24 hours as most of next week looks mild. 

Just a heads up…in model fantasyland…days 11-15…which is the beginning of February…real winter cold is looking to make its presence felt around here.  Just keep in mind where this is again, model fantasyland (and not the good kind) before we get too excited.

So with that…enjoy your Friday and your weekend.

A pretty good meteorological rule of thumb is when you go 20 degrees above normal that there’s a good chance it will end loudly…today certainly did.

Here’s the map of storm damage from today.  It’s all wind related, no hail reports.  The red is tornado (more on that in a minute), the blue are wind damage reports…trees down, property damage etc…the yellow would be measured wind speeds…the one near Winchester was 60 mph from the Kentucky Mesonet site in northern Clark  County.

Even with the pretty solid line of storms (and the overly done solid line of warnings) it was essentially 2 cells within that line that did the job of producing severe weather. 

The primary one was the one that also produced the tornado in Louisville (again more in a moment).  It moved parallel to US 60 from Louisville to Frankfort causing sporadic damage along the way (don’t be surprised if the blue dot along the Shelby/Oldham county line becomes red tomorrow after a survey is done).  At Frankfort US 60 turns south, but the storm cell didn’t running basically parallel to US 460 all the way to Prestonsburg producing occasional damage all along the way…pretty cool meteorologically when you can actually see it.

You can also see the linear feature that ran from the yellow dot near Campbellsville all the way past Jackson…a weaker cell within the line…again pretty cool when it’s plotted out.

Now for the tornado…It was an EF1 near St Mathews in Louisville.  Everybody seems to be amazed that we had a tornado in January.  It’s really not all that unusual with our most infamous one (at least as a TV station) back in 2006…that was the day Louisville was in a New Year’s bowl game (Orange?) and we had tornadoes in the southwestern part of the area that we had to cover.  There were 6 that day in Kentucky including in McKinney in Lincoln County.

Since 1950 there have been 15 days in January that have had tornadoes across Kentucky…that makes it a once every 4 years  average…There has been an uptick in these the last 15 years, but January tornadoes can and do happen in Kentucky.  Ironically on the day your friendly neighborhood weatherguy entered this world there were 4 tornadoes across the Commonwealth…a fun fact to know and tell.

We do have another cold snap to contend with…but our temperatures are only going about 5 below normal (not that big a deal).  It’s going to last a couple of days and then we’re poised for a big time warm up late in the weekend and especially next week.  It too may end loudly, but we’ll talk about that later.

There’s still nothing over the next week and a half to indicate any kind of sustained cold…which gets us almost to February…the last month of meteorological winter.

The sun will increase tomorrow, so enjoy that with the chill in the air…and have a terrific day.

The severe threat is holding together a bit longer…line of strong and borderline severe storms is near I-65.  Keep it on LEX 18 for the next couple of hours for any updates or warnings for us.

Warm winds howling this morning…cold winds tonight…

We’re already well into the 50′s and will likely be into the 60′s in many places later today ahead of a cold front.  The front as of 9:00 is roughly from Indianapolis to Paducah and we’re pegging its arrival between noon and 3.  In addition to the strong winds ahead of the front, it could be accompanied by a few thundershowers.  They were severe last night in Missouri, but they should weaken considerably by the time they get here.

Immediately behind the front there is a 20 degree temperature drop and 100 miles behind the front there is a 40 degree drop…it’s in the low 20′s in northern Missouri, St. Louis is in the 40′s and Louisville is 60 at 9:00….so that will be fun.  However we should not see the snow burst like we did with last week’s front.  We may get some flurries or a snow shower on the very end of the rain, but there won’t be the kind of moisture hanging behind the front that we saw last week, so we’ll be drying as we’re chilling…(is that a rap lyric?)

We’ll continue to see wind gusts in the 30 to 40 range this morning…so some rocks in your pockets is not a bad idea.

The cold that is coming is very transitory again.  We’ve got a few days in the 60′s in our 8 day early next week.  We have thunderstorms to worry about next week instead of winter.

We’ll give you a heads up if any of this scenario changes….and with that enjoy your Tuesday.,

Call it the “Little Clipper That Could”

And Happy Sunday!  Ok, so we go the first 43 days of meteorological winter without an accumulating snow and now we do it twice in 3 days…cool.  We’re now officially over 1 whole inch for the winter season (1.1″ total at the Bluegrass Airport)…and in case you are keeping score at home today marks the midpoint of meteorological winter (have to find a way to abbreviate that…).

We did have snow in the forecast for Saturday afternoon/evening with the little or no accumulation tag on it.  That’s what most of us got, an inch or less.  With that said, there did end up being a nice stripe…not big, but a stripe…of 1 to 3 inch snowfalls south of Lexington.  A rough axis of that would be from Harrodsburg to Beattyville and about 15 miles either side of that line judging from snowfall reports this morning.  This is where we need the lawyerly disclaimer of ‘your actual results may vary’, but that’s a rough estimate.

The Clipper was moisture starved, but it had a bit more oomph when it arrived than we were figuring., thus the swath of higher totals.  It’s a bonus snow though, as everything else we’ve been takling about…mostly warmth with little cold shots remains in place.  We’re not going to shovel the just under an inch at Stately Meck Manor this morning as the increasing sun and temperatures well into the 30′s should take care of most of that.  By tomorrow, we’re well into the 40′s and pushing 50 in places.

Another quick cold shot mid week (rain maker) and then more warmth to finish the week out.

There is absolutley barbaric cold air in Canada and Alaska…ridiculously cold even by their standards…but the mechanisms to get it move south and hold still do not show up on any long range modelling which now gets us into February.  We’ve been dodging bullets this winter season, but there are still plenty left in the chamber, so doen’t give up on this whole winter yet.

So with all that, enjoy your Sunday…and the little reminder what winter is occasionally supposed to look like.

Here’s what the cold frontal passage looked like from the Kentucky Mesonet… It begins at 1:45 at the bottom and time gets closer to present as you go up.  EXTREMELY impressive…

Date	Time	Air Temp	Rel. Humidity	Dewpoint	Wind Direction	Wind Speed	Wind Gust	5 Minute Precip	Solar Radiation
		ºF	%	ºF		mi/hr	mi/hr	in	W/m2
	12 Jan	2:45 pm EST	34.1	93	32.3	W	18.5	30.2	0.00	59
	12 Jan	2:40 pm EST	34.8	92	32.6	W	20.8	29.7	0.00	41
	12 Jan	2:35 pm EST	36.1	91	33.6	W	19.3	30.3	0.00	91
	12 Jan	2:30 pm EST	37.2	91	34.7	W	20.1	32.8	0.00	22
	12 Jan	2:25 pm EST	38.0	91	35.6	W	19.6	28.7	0.00	20
	12 Jan	2:20 pm EST	39.1	91	36.6	W	16.7	28.4	0.00	29
	12 Jan	2:15 pm EST	40.0	91	37.5	W	17.0	24.6	0.00	37
	12 Jan	2:10 pm EST	41.2	90	38.5	W	19.6	28.3	0.00	19
	12 Jan	2:05 pm EST	43.5	89	40.5	W	19.5	33.0	0.01	36
	12 Jan	2:00 pm EST	44.7	93	42.6	SW	14.6	22.4	0.01	33
	12 Jan	1:55 pm EST	44.6	94	42.9	SSW	13.0	18.0	0.01	32
	12 Jan	1:50 pm EST	44.6	94	43.0	SSW	9.4	14.0	0.00	25
	12 Jan	1:45 pm EST	44.5	94	42.9	SSW	10.0	14.2	0.01	39

I know the columns are a bit skewed…look at the 3rd column, that’s the temperature.  10 degrees in 45 minutes!