The weather modeling is basically in two camps this morning. Some show energy moving through west to east early in the Christmas weekend, which could at least put flurries or light snow into the air for Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day stays dry. The GFS and MRF models are in this camp. The other camp says that we get multiple waves of energy moving up from the gulf toward the east coast or appalachian mountains throughout the weekend. This would give us chances for on and off rain, but it would keep our temperatures slightly too warm for snow. The Canadian (CMC) and European (ECMWF) models are in this camp.
Just for fun, here is the latest MRF chart valid Christmas Eve:
The solid black line is the freezing line about 5,000 ft. up above us. Kentucky is firmly in this zone. At the same time, precip. is backfeeding from a strong low moving through the Carolinas. This model shows snow in the air on Christmas Eve for Kentucky. It is currently the only model run that is this bullish on a scenario like this playing out.
The point is, we are now only 4 days out, and every computer model is showing something completely different. Winter is ALWAYS a very tough season to forecast weather in.. but this year in particular has been horrible lately. This is the worst I've ever seen the models perform. You simply cannot say for certain what the weekend will bring. At this point, dry conditions, rain, and snow are all possibilities. It's a weather guy's worst nightmare.
I will update again tonight on what I personally think is going to actually happen this weekend. I'm going to look over the model runs this afternoon, and then tonight I'll take a stab at what we will honestly see play out.
-Shawn
tx WXMAN ur correct one that be thursday at earliest before model agreee on storm.
ReplyDelete19:00 (7PM) The GFS model continues to really struggle deciding what to do with this weekend. The European model is sticking to it's guns. The euro shows a low moving from Texas to the Tennessee Valley and then up the app. mountains to the east coast. That path would bring rain to us Christmas Eve night, changing to snow on Christmas day. If the Euro model verifies, we're looking at a white Christmas here in Kentucky. I want to see one more model run before I make a call on this...and that doesn't start coming out until midnight so maybe by morning I'll get a shot at looking it over.
ReplyDeleteCB says the EURO 'lost' that storm. Is this typical for it to have problems 3-5 days out and can it pop back up on a later run?
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