A Quiet Week Ahead

Good evening.  Thought I'd stop by for a quick update since I'll be out of town through the weekend.  We've got a southern branch system firing up tomorrow in Georgia.  Imagine that.  Haha!  The southern branch has been very active this winter.  The models are taking this storm to the east coast, and the precip. shield may extend northward as far as southeastern Kentucky.  So folks in the southeastern counties will likely see a cold rain on Thursday, ending as light snow early Friday morning.  I suspect that a few roads could become slick, but this does not look like a significant storm.

The weekend looks fantastic with high pressure in control.  Sunshine should be the rule, with temperatures running in the 40s for highs areawide.  All in all, about as nice as you can hope for in January.

That brings us to next week.  An "arctic outbreak" has been the forecast on some blogs, and it does look like temperatures are going to take a tumble.  However, I personally would not consider this an arctic outbreak.  The GFS shows this nicely:

The blue line draped across Kentucky is the -10C line.  This is at the surface, not at the 850mb level like the other guys are obsessed with.  So at the peak of this "arctic outbreak", the GFS model shows a temperature of 15F, give or take a few.  We've already been into the teens this season, so it'll be nothing really new.  I will say that the European model is much colder looking and time will tell which model will be correct.  But if history repeats itself, my money is on the GFS.

Something else you can see on this chart, valid Tuesday morning, is the clipper shooting into the northern plains.  This run of the GFS keeps that snow just to our north.  But we will have to watch this closely next week, as a small deviation in the track could bring snow to Kentucky.  It looks like a pretty healthy clipper in the modeling of the past day or so.

Before I go...  here's a little tidbit.  January in central Kentucky has featured single digit temperatures in each of the past several years, EXCEPT for 2012.  So far, 2013 has also not seen any single digit readings.  It appears that we are in a cycle of mild winters at the moment.  This isn't the wild and crazy winter some would make it out to be.  But... I do not expect this to continue throughout this decade.  Our time is coming..one of these years.  The 50s, 70s, and 90s featured some of the worst winter weather in Kentucky hsitory.  The 10s will likely keep the pattern going and bring winter back to us in coming years.  (Then the other guys will really go nuts!  :) )

Have a great weekend and enjoy the nice weather!  Next week will be chilly.

You can follow on twitter @WXinKY

-Shawn