Sunday afternoon

It seems like it’s been a week, maybe longer.  I’ve been warned about a possibility of an ice storm this weekend.  Constant barrages of what we could have – sleet (maybe) rain(maybe), slow(maybe, and freezing rain(maybe).  Starting a couple of days ago, the frozen options began to fall out of the “options” list (as per the computer models),  but not from the forecasts.  If you read (very carefully )the NWS forecast today, it’s a forecast for rain(as it should be).  However, why is the forecast so full of references to sleet and freezing rain and possibly snow flakes??? Beats me!  How long do you think it’ll take the weather service to get all the icy words out of the Louisville forecast?

Until they do, here’s my forecast.., Light rain should move into the area by 3-4 P.M.  Rain should get a little heavier during the evening hours, then should become more scattered again after midnight.  Temperatures will fall into the upper 30’s to near 40 once the rain begins.  Temperatures will hold fairly steady in the 36-38 range most of the night then fall to the mid 30’s tomorrow afternoon.

The above forecast is for the Louisville metro area.  As we get 20-30 miles north of Louisville a  little light freezing rain will be possible this evening, but it will quickly change over to all rain.  Roads are expected to remain wet, not icy.

Thursday Afternoon

Still pretty calm on the weather front.  We’ll see  a warming trend beginning tomorrow that will continue through Sunday.  Then we’ll begin a slow slide into colder weather beginning Monday.  Models remain very consistent.  Mostly sunny tomorrow, then cloudy Saturday with a small chance for rain near Louisville, but higher over Indiana.  Any rain that falls will be light.  For several days the models have been agreeing on a Sunday arrival of a strong storm from the southwest.  That will bring a chance for moderate to heavy rains and temperatures reaching as high as 60 or so.  The only difference since yesterday is a slight delay in the arrival of Sunday’s rain.  Favored time now seems to be Sunday afternoon and night.

Longer term:  Cold weather will be the rule for most of next week.  It’ll be generally dry after Monday, but we will see a chance for some light snow or flurries Wednesday night.

Winter Outlook

The National Weather Service today issued their winter outlook.  Meteorological winter is the months of December, January, and February.

This outlook has undergone some major changes (toward colder) in the past two months. The September edition had almost no area of the U.S. in “below normal” category.  Then, last month, they added Texas and a small area surrounding.  Today, that area has expanded to cover about three times more of the country.  That’s an amazing change, but I still don’t think they’ve gone nearly far enough to the cold side.  Now they have us with about a 35% chance for winter temperatures to be below normal.

I’ve checked a half dozen or so non-government sources for their winter forecasts and they generally run much colder than the “official” outlook.  I’ve mentioned before about a private group called Weather Bell Analytics.  For my money, I think they are the best around at seasonal forecasting.  Here’s their winter forecast.  I think it’ll be a lot closer to what actually happens than the NWS version.

Buffalo Snow

We’ve all been hearing about, and seeing pictures of the epic snows around Buffalo, New York.  Here are a few of the ones I like the best.

Just kidding

On the first two, you can see how narrow the bands of snow off the lake are.  Within 20 miles of the 5′-6′ snows you are likely to find areas with just a few inches of snow – it all depends on the wind direction!  The last photo gets my award for greatest ingenuity.

Saturday 5 P.M.

There’s an area of (mostly) light rain coming eastward from western Indiana.  It is weakening, and expected to continue that trend, but it should hold together long enough to bring some light rain to the Louisville area between roughly 7-9 P.M. this evening.

The rest of the weekend outlook looks pretty much on course (see yesterday’s post, below).  Slightly better chance –  about 30-40% – . for showers/t-storms tomorrow  until late afternoon.  The primary rain/storm chance remains tomorrow night and Monday.  There could be some pockets of heavy rain, but the GFS and NAM have reduced their rain total forecast from yesterday (especially the NAM) AND the HPC has dropped their forecast from 2″+ yesterday to 1 – 1.50″ today.

Thursday afternoon

The upper level waves of energy are slowly working into position to finally visit the lower Ohio Valley.  Today’s system is slowly spinning southward along the east side of the Mississippi from Illinois to western KY.  I expect it to drift  southward and fade away this evening and tonight, so it poses very little threat to our area.  However, I’m still concerned about of couple of upper air remnants from today’s system.  The GFS continues to bring the energy across KY in two pieces – the first one being the system tonight which I expect to have minimal impact here. The trailing energy pocket should take direct aim on us, with a high chance for showers/thunderstorms tomorrow from about 10 A.M. until 4 P.M. or so.  Yesterday, the NAM wasn’t buying that scenario but has moved closer to the GFS reasoning today.

Another problem has popped up for the weather Saturday.  The GFS has picked up on another weak pocket of energy coming over the Rockies.  While the general trend is to weaken this system, it is projected to move over(or near) us Saturday.  Thus, my previously dry Saturday forecast doesn’t look like it’ll hold up.  Tomorrow’s system will take some of the upper air moisture along as it heads east.  Less moisture and a weakening energy pocket should still be able to at least generate some scattered thunderstorms.  But, let me emphasize the scattered, hit ‘n’ miss nature expected Saturday as compared to a longer, more widespread outbreak expected Friday.

With thunderstorm outbreaks you can never be certain what’s going to happen, but that’s how it looks for me now.

Rosetta arrives!

A few days ago, we mentioned the European Space Agency’s (ESA) space probe Rosetta approaching comet 67P.  After a ten year journey it arrived about 130 km away from the comet core and will now spend the next month or so jockeying into an orbit about 30 km (20 miles) from the surface.  Here’s how the comet looked at a distance of 130 km from Rosetta…photo courtesy of ESA.