WKU Meteorology

The NAM has been bullish on a Mid-South snow event for Friday afternoon-evening with a range of solutions from the extreme case of a 4-8″ snowstorm (Tuesday 18Z) to a rain followed by a couple of inches of snow (12Z Wednesday). On the other hand, every other operational model from the NGM to the AVN to the UKMET to the CMC to the European to the GFS show a light rain event that could possibly end as flurries. Remember those old commercials that said “Four out of five dentists agree that chewing Trident gum prevents cavities”? Would you go to the one dentist that doesn’t agree?? Me neither. Continue reading →

NOTE: The original forecast map from NWS Louisville has been replaced, therefore all discussion in this posting was for the original map and not the one currently posted. See the 4:00 pm update at the bottom for more details.

The NWS office in Louisville originally backed off on snow amounts early this morning (2″ for Louisville and 1″ for Lexington) but have since drastically raised amounts. I think this is a very optimistic forecast. Recent trends in the NAM hint that the smart bet would be to take the “under” with regards to this forecast. Continue reading →

A weak surface low supported by a positively tilted trough may bring an accumulating mix of wintry precipitation to the northern half of Kentucky Monday night into early Tuesday. The surface low is expected to track along the Ohio River, which will allow enough warm air to surge northward to bring rain into northern KY and southern IN during the day Tuesday, which will create a sloppy, wet mess. Continue reading →

While the Mid-South deals with early season severe weather and a mostly snowless winter, the Upper Midwest will get yet another dose of blizzard conditions and life-threatening cold this weekend. Continue reading →

Current radar shows the cold front that sparked a line of convection north of the Ohio River last night is stalling out and retrograding northward. It is expected that this boundary will become a quasistationary warm front that will continue to spawn convection along a line from SE Missouri to southern Ohio. This will help to keep south-central KY mostly dry through the afternoon hours. Continue reading →

The storm expected to bring more severe weather to the Mid-South late Tuesday shares many characteristics with the storm from the week before, although it is the differences between the storms that could potentially be more worrisome. Continue reading →

In the recent “ENSO diagnostic discussion“, a weekly must-read for any synoptic meteorologist, the Climate Prediction Center makes the case that La Nina conditions may persist through the fall of 2008 and possibly through winter 2008-09. Continue reading →

I have noted many times in this blog over the past year that the models have consistently done a poor job in capturing the strength of the SE ridge and its role in deflecting storms to the northwest of where models predict. This phenomenon happened yet again Thursday/Friday as the surface low from the potent Midwest storm tracked a couple of hundred miles northwest of the track predicted by both the GFS and NAM. Continue reading →

A very potent winter storm will bring widespread 6″ plus snowfall to the same places that have seen quite a bit of snow the past two winters. The heaviest accumulations from this storm should approach 10″ on an axis from Springfield, MO to Detroit, MI. Synoptically, this storm has a lot of similarities to the March 20, 1996 storm that brought 8-14″ to southern IN. Continue reading →