White Christmas for Kentucky?

Good Sunday afternoon.  I thought I'd post up a quick update on the weather for next weekend.  Today's run of my favorite weather model, the good old American GFS, is sticking to it's guns on developing a storm on the gulf coast this weekend, and then shooting that storm up the east coast the day after Christmas.  This most recent run actually brings a cold rain to us on Christmas Eve, then dries us out briefly before bringing in a mega-storm late Christmas night.  Check out the chart valid 11:00PM Christmas night:

You can see the low as it is strengthening near Atlanta, GA Christmas night.  The next several hours of this model run shows this low getting stronger as it moves toward Virginia.  On this chart you can see that the freezing air is already moving into Kentucky as the precip. is increasing from our south.  That's a textbook recipe for SNOW for us. 

Taken literally, today's GFS charts would mean a big time snowstorm for Kentucky counties that are east of I-75.  Travel on I-75 Christmas night into Monday morning would be severely impacted due to the harsh weather and the lack of manpower out clearing roadways (it IS the holidays afterall). 

Folks west of I-75 would see snow too, but it would not be a massive snowstorm for us.  It is important to remember that we are still a full WEEK away from this storm, and details on it will change as we get closer.  This is obviously not set in stone.  But the point is, the chance for a white Christmas for some of us is still on the table.  If you plan on traveling in eastern Kentucky next weekend, you'll want to keep a close eye on this one.

It's all a matter of the track of the low and the strength of the low.  We need a STRONG low to pull the cold air in rapidly from the northwest, and we need it to track toward western Virginia.  If we can get those two things to come together next weekend, we'll be looking at everything WHITE.  Stay tuned...

-Shawn