WKU Meteorology

The clipper that will move through the Mid-South early this weekend will not be a big snow producer for south-central KY, although taken at face value, some of the model outputs suggest that it could. Continue reading →

Right before noon at Tuesday I was outside and noticed a light snow/graupel mix that came down for about five minutes. At around 3:00 pm, there was an additional brief burst of snow and sleet. While it is not unusual to get wintry weather in Bowling Green in February, what made this a rare event was that the temperature at the time of the snow was 48 degrees!! So how does this happen? Continue reading →

Anytime you get a stretch of several days in a row of 60+ weather during winter you have to be concerned about severe weather when the cold air returns. For south-central KY, it looks like the worst of the severe weather will occur to the south and west of the region. Continue reading →

In 24 hrs the models went from an historic superstorm over the Appalachians to a run-of-the-mill nor’easter. The models are now all in agreement that the phasing of the jet streams will occur well east of the region, which means this storm will mainly go out to sea. Kentucky may get some light snow Sunday night into Monday morning with the arctic front but minimal accumulations. There may be some light snow showers when the trough swings through midweek. It is amazing to me how much of the meteorological community (including myself) jumped onto the Appalachian superstorm idea Wednesday/Thursday just to see the rug pulled out from underneath. This reminds me of what it feels like to use models to forecast snowstorms for KY.

Less than a week after a major ice storm devastated a large swath of the central United States with ice, snow and flooding rains, another even more powerful storm appears to be on the way. In fact, computer models suggest this new storm could rival some of the more famous “superstorms” of recent decades. The Groundhog Day Superstorm has the potential to produce 20+ inches of snow over the Appalachians, severe weather across the Gulf Coast, and flooding rains along the East Coast; however, the most notable impact may be the wind of 50+ mph that could batter parts of the Great Lakes region and southeast Canada. But what can Kentucky expect from this storm? Continue reading →

This is shaping up to be a major ice storm for south-central Kentucky Monday night into Tuesday. There could be widespread power outages and downed power lines from ice-covered tree limbs. I would also expect widespread school cancellations (including WKU) since this has the potential to be devastating. Continue reading →

The GFS ensembles and ECMWF continue to show the westward trend in the mean longwave trough over the United States. This suggests at least a break in the recent cold NW flow pattern that Kentucky has been in since mid-November. Some model solutions hint at a SW flow that would mean a return to the 50s and 60s while others show more of a cool zonal flow that would keep temperatures near seasonal averages. I’ll have more on this idea this weekend.