Severe Weather Outbreak?

Well, January has been nothing but boring.  At Lexington, the monthly avg. temp. is 34.2F so far, which is above average.  Rain is 3.00" (not counting today) which is just a little above average.  Snow is 0.5" which is well below average.  So it's been really dull around here, weatherwise.

That might finally be about to change.  NOW some of the other local mets. might have something to start harping on.

A storm will develop tomorrow and start it's trek toward the Great Lakes.  As it does so, the initial low should give way to a second low that may develop near the Ozarks of MO.   This low will drag a strong cold front toward Kentucky during the day on Wednesday.  Here is where it gets interesting.  The models are forecasting a 140 knot (!) jet streak to impinge upon western Kentucky during this time.

You've got a good vorticity max. setting up in western KY during this time also:

This front will have some really good forcing behind it in the form of arctic air.  This will drive it hard into a very warm and moist airmass (near record temps. this week) and that will create a squall line.

Check out the simulated radar from the latest NAM model run.  This is what it predicts that the radar will look like early Wednesday:

That's a pretty healthy squall line for January.  And it doesn't take a whole lot of perfect dynamics in January to create a severe weather event.  So to see 70F surface air, a strong jet streak, good vorticity, and strong forcing all come together the way the modeling is showing it this week will get your attention in a hurry.

What is likely to happen is that we'll see widespread high winds and heavy rains.  Some damage reports are likely.  There is also a chance that with these dynamics in place, isolated tornadoes will also occur, especially across western Kentucky.  I think that everyone needs to keep a close eye on the weather in Kentucky and points south this week.  We could end up with quite a nasty outbreak of storms through Wednesday.

Behind this front, as I mentioned earlier you've got arctic air spilling into the OH Valley on Thursday.  This will create snow showers off and on for Thursday and into Friday.  If you look upstream toward Montana you can see another wave poised to drop in for the weekend and this could generate more snow squalls in Kentucky for Saturday.  We could end up in a situation where clipper style systems continue to rotate into the OH Valley and supply KY with off and on snow showers throughout the first weekend of February.

So from very abnormally warm air, severe storms, and possible tornadoes....to snow squalls for continuous days...the weather in Kentucky is NOW finally about to get interesting.  Everybody stay safe this week.  I'll try to drop by tomorrow with an update from some of the higher resolution models pertaining to the possible severe weather.


Later,
Shawn