WKU Meteorology

1. Friday will see a weak cold front pass through with some low clouds and patchy drizzle this will be followed by some sun later with highs in the mid 50’s.

2. The main action arrives as low pressure rides up the east coast Saturday night through Sunday which looks to bring rain and more overcast skies to the region however any shift in the track could alter the forecast from a passing shower or two to a washout lows will be in the mid to upper 30’s with highs in the low to mid 40’s. winds will also switch from southerly ahead of the low to northeast in behind it making Sunday a very raw day across the region.

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Yesterday thanks to a surge of warm air advection Bowling Green the temperature at Bowling Green finally went above freezing this month not counting the first few hours of the New Year. Temperatures for the month are about 14*F below normal as of Tuesday. Here is the climate report so far for the month a very cold first half of Janurary.

How does this compare to other stretches of cold

this from the nws in Louisville

“Bowling Green ended up with 9 days in a row below freezing from January 2 through the 10th.  The record is 11 days set January 22 – February 1, 1948.  This was Bowling Green’s longest stretch below freezing since December 16-25, 1989, and the 3rd longest on record”.

so close to the record!!

– we have one more system passing to our south early Sunday before a week long thaw of above normal temperatures sets in. Right now the upper levels on the modeling are just to warm for snow, no way getting around that. However there is still a threat of enough low level cold below freezing at the surface Sunday morning for light freezing rain. I’ll have one more update later this week on this threat.

– by the way the thaw does not mean that winter’s over and at least the start of February appears to be another cold stretch compared to average.

1. Over the weekend the region ended up seeing more of a northerly flow off the great lakes which allowed for some light snow showers to continue into Saturday the total for the clipper and these snow showers was just over 2 inches. Last night it was easy to tell where it was clear (temps near 0 due to snow) and cloudy (still over 10*) , this goes to show that with clear skies a  snowcover can easily take 5 or 10 degrees off overnight lows, here’s a look at the mesonet lows.  Today highs should get into the 20’s regionwide. Continue reading →

Any student who has taken my synoptic meteorology course knows that there is a very good reason snowfall forecasts tend to bust for Bowling Green. Synoptically speaking, every good snowfall storm track tends to miss this region. The three primary snowfall tracks are 1) Nor’easters, which typically only bring snow to far eastern KY (Dec 19-21), 2) Plains blizzards, which put us in the warm sector as all rain (Dec 24-25), and 3) Alberta Clippers (or Manitoba Maulers, if you will), which are most likely to break our hearts with a busted forecast (Today). Continue reading →

A cold front with a wave of low pressure is expected to track just to the north of the region Thursday. This will spread a large area of snow throughout the region starting around dawn and lasting into the mid afternoon before a dry slot comes through. temperatures will be in the 20’s Thursday across the mid south with average accumulations of 2-4 inches thanks in large part to snow ratios close to 20:1. The main variable that has lead to shifts in forecasted accumulations is the amount of qpf right now the models have come into good agreement for about .15 qpf, around 3 inches of snow. snow will stick to all surfaces and will lead to deteriorating travel conditions throughout the day in addtion winds will pikc up to around 10 mph allwoing for blowing snow as well to reduce visbailtes. tommorow I will go into winter storm mode with updates or comments every few hours on the winter weather situation. Allow extra time when traveling tomorrow. Although we are under a winter storm watch i see the entire mid south region being switched to a winter weather advisory later today but this will still be a serious winter system to affect the mid south with large scale impacts.  To see how this cold stretch ranks all time please see Dr.Goodrich’s write up from earlier this week.

Today was the 3rd straight day with a high temperature under 32 F for Bowling Green. The forecast calls for sub-freezing high temperatures through at least Monday of next week which would fall just short of the all-time record of 11 straight sub-freezing highs set from 1/22-2/1 1948. In all, this is shaping up to be the most impressive cold snap since the Januarys of 1977-1979, which each had over 13 days of sub-freezing highs.

1. This afternoon highs should be able to recover into the mid 20’s thanks to mostly sunny skies after a very chilly start. Continue reading →

 The main headline for the eastern United States will be a very strong arctic airmass which will dominate the weather pattern for at least the next week. Expect highs in the mid to upper 20’s and lows in the 10’s each day with blustery nw winds. This period of expected extreme cold over 10*F below normal will likely be one of longest in recent memory for the mid-south. Teleconnections wise this is set-up by a negative nao, ao, and epo. Also weak disturbances in the flow may lead to some scattered flurries and light snow from time to time. Continue reading →

1. Cold nw winds and overcast skies will only allow for highs in the low to mid 30’s Monday across the mid south.

2. Tuesday should be a seasonable day with more sunshine and highs near 40 thanks to high pressure moving in.

3. This high pressure should allow for a decent influx of warm air advection into the region for Wednesday and Thursday with fresh cold air not arriving till late Thursday. This means that the diagramed rain or snow chance for Wednesday night although light should be rain. Highs Wednesday and Thursday should be in the upper 30’s to 40 with thickness values over 540 and 850 mb temps above 0 all of these lead to the conclusion of mainly rain across the mid south from this storm. However by Thursday night the secondary low should track to our southeast which may change the rain over to some snow, this looks to take more time to deelvop meaning lighter precip than I had shown on the last post. At this time only light snow showers and flurries are expected from Thursday night into early Saturday.

4. The first arctic blast of the season will be coming for the new year which will be covered in the next update toward the end of the week.  There could be a chance for very light snow Sunday although this could be further west toward Kansas City and Memphis.

1. Another windy day across the region today. More windy weather is expected into Monday thanks in part to the leftovers of the Christmas storm which will bring a cold front through Sunday night. However the snow chances with this front will be to our north with only scattered flurries expected. Highs should be in the upper 30’s Sunday with lows in the 20’s. This chilly weather mostly cloudy skies and flurrie chances linger into Monday thanks to nw flow. Continue reading →