Light Snow Chances Through the Weekend

Discussion:

It certainly feels warmer than the last few days as the temperature in Bowling Green has surpassed the freezing mark and looks to top out in the middle 40s by later this afternoon. To our south, portions of Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas are getting pounded by significant ice and snow which is rare for that part of the country. The area of low pressure causing trouble to our southeast has caused our skies to be mostly cloudy across the region this afternoon. There is a possibility for a few rain or snow showers to impact areas right along the KY/TN border later today as the low pressure moves farther east. As of right now it looks like little to no accumulation of snow to any areas that see any precipitation across the southern part of the state.

Ice and snow accumulation in Augusta, GA. (Courtesy: WJBF-6 Augusta)

This area of low pressure will turn up the east coast, and cloud cover will move out of the area overnight as temperatures dip down to the lower 20ss. On Thursday, an area of weak high pressure will keep skies clear with temperatures in the lower to middle 40s. Lows Thursday night look to be around 30 degrees.

Friday's weather could be messy as there are some snow chances in the forecast. A weak disturbance will dive into Kentucky early on Friday. There is a bit of model disagreement as to how far south this disturbance will track. A track farther to the south could mean more precipitation for our area, but a track to the north would mean less precipitation. There is also the question of precipitation type. While the precipitation looks to begin as snow during the morning Friday, southwesterly winds will help bring temperatures up to around 40 degrees during the afternoon which will transition the precipitation to rain. As the system dives southeast late Friday, we could see some of the precipitation end as snow before midnight Friday. As of right now, it looks like the bulk of precipitation looks to miss our area, with temps getting too warm on Friday for any accumulations. There is a chance for a dusting to half inch of snow as the system departs Friday night. We will monitor this system for any changes over the new two days.

12Z GFS  Surface Precipitation Type for 3PM Friday afternoon shows how close that rain/snow line will be to Bowling Green.

On Saturday, we will be influenced by another weak surface high pressure which will keep skies clear with high temperatures in the middle to upper 30s. Saturday night, another clipper system looks to dive in from the northwest, but confidence is pretty high that the precipitation will stay north of southern Kentucky. A few light snow showers are possible Saturday night as the clipper skirts to the north with our low temperature around 30 degrees. If Friday's clipper could lay down a light accumulation of snow across central Kentucky, that snow cover could influence a more southerly track of Saturday night's clipper so this is another system we will be watching for any changes.

An upper level ridge will nose its way eastward on Sunday, bringing clear skies and high temperatures near...50 degrees. 50 degrees will be certainly be welcomed after our recent cold spell and their are some indications that warmer temps could last into the middle of next week. That is all for this afternoon, have a great day!

Days at a Glance:

Wednesday: High - 43 Low - 22 Winds - Light and Variable
Precipitation: 20% chance of isolated rain and snow showers, especially across the KY/TN border. Skies - Mostly Cloudy becoming Clear overnight.

Thursday: High - 44 Low - 29 Winds - SW at 3-7 mph.
Precipitation: 0% Skies - Clear.

Friday: High - 41 Low - 24 Winds - SW becoming W at 5-10 mph.
Precipitation: 50% chance of rain and snow showers during the day becoming snow showers Friday night. Accumulations: A dusting to half an inch. Skies - Cloudy.

Saturday: High - 37 Low - 30 Winds- S at 5-10 mph.
Precipitation: 20% chance of isolated snow showers Saturday night. Skies- Partly Cloudy becoming Mostly Cloudy overnight.

Sunday: High - 47 Low - 34 Winds - S at 3-5 mph.
Precipitation: 0% Skies - Partly Cloudy.

Forecaster: Zack Leasor

Snow Chances and Cold Weather Continues

Discussion:

The cold weather will continue this week as the eastern half of the country remains under a stubborn upper level trough. The current temperature at the Warren County airport is 32 degrees under cloudy skies. Skies will remain cloudy as a weak disturbance dives into our area tonight bringing a chance for light snow. Much like the other disturbances that have impacted us in the past week this disturbance only brings a chance for a dusting to a half inch of snow. A few locations could see up to an inch to our north. Light snow looks to begin around 5 PM and end around midnight. Additional snow showers are possible overnight into the morning with low temperatures around 25 degrees. The map below showing accumulated snowfall with tonight's system according to the 12Z NAM paints most of Kentucky with up to an inch of snow.



12Z NAM Accumulated Snowfall through Noon Monday (Courtesy: NOAA)

Heading into the work week, the upper level trough will continue to keep our temperatures well below normal. Except for a few flurries possible Monday, the beginning of the week looks dry with temperatures on Monday and Tuesday struggling to reach 30 degrees with lows in the teens. On Wednesday, temperatures will reach the middle 30s ahead of an area of low pressure swinging through the southeast. Southern Kentucky will be right on the northwest edge of the precipitation with most of the moisture to our southeast. A few rain or snow showers are possible Wednesday and Wednesday night with no accumulations expected at this time. However, any changes in the track of the low could mean more impacts for our area so we will be keeping an eye on any possible changes to Wednesday's forecast.

 

 

Days at a Glance:

 

Sunday Night: Low - 25 Winds - N at 5-7 mph.

Precipitation: 50% chance of light snow. Accumulations of a dusting to 0.5". Skies - Cloudy.

 

Monday: High - 29 Low -13 Winds - N at 5-10 mph.

Precipitation: 30% chance of scattered snow showers before noon. Skies - Mostly Cloudy

 

Tuesday: High -28 Low - 18 Winds - N at 5-10 mph.

Precipitation: 0% Skies - Partly Cloudy

 

Wednesday: High - 36 Low - 20 Winds - Light and Variable.

Precipitation: 20% chance of rain or snow showers. Skies - Partly Cloudy becoming Mostly Cloudy overnight.

 

Forecaster: Zack Leasor

 



Chilly Rest of the Week

Good evening everyone. Hope you all are safe on the roads cause they are a bit slick out there! Current temperature in Bowling Green is 27 degrees with winds out of the northwest at 5 mph.
Winter is here to stay through the rest of the week with our temperatures struggling to get above the freezing mark.

Tomorrow's clouds will keep temperatures below freezing as high pressure begins to make its way in. Flurries cannot be ruled out tomorrow afternoon into the early evening hours though. A few rays of sunshine may make an appearance on Friday afternoon as temperatures will still struggle to raise above freezing with northwest winds. Our next disturbance looks to take shape Friday night. Accumulations look to be light at best. A dusting could accumulate Friday night into Saturday morning.

GFS 00Z paints a good picture of what one can expect. Light and scattered accumulations Friday night into Saturday morning. 

Which brings us to our next snow chance on Sunday. There's a few discrepancies between the models as you can see in the picture below. The NAM model on goes out to 84 hours so it is difficult to get an exact idea but going with persistence, a dusting to half of an inch cannot be ruled out on Sunday.

NAM vs. GFS model 00Z model run valid for Sunday morning at 3 AM.

Again, this does not look like anything too major, but be cautious of slick roadways this weekend before going out!

Days at a Glance
Thursday: High of 25 with a low of 11. Winds NNW 5-10 mph with wind chills approaching the single digits. A few flurries under mostly cloudy skies.


Friday: High of 30 with a low of 19. Partly cloudy skies. Winds from the north at 5 mph. Chance for a few flakes Friday night into Saturday morning. Slight chance for light accumulations. Chance of precip 30%.

Saturday: High of 35 with a low of 25. A few morning snow showers. Mostly cloudy skies.

Sunday: High of 32 with a low of 20. Chance of precip 30%.


Forecaster: Brian Urbancic

Rain Rain Go Away!

Good evening folks. Hope everyone had a safe night even though our snow forecast never panned out. Some wet weather looks to be in our sights again late tomorrow morning lasting through Tuesday night then switching over to some light sleet early Wednesday morning. No accumulation is expected as most of this will just be rain. So how much rain can we expect?

High resolution NAM model data valid for tomorrow at 12 PM. Notice heavy rain just to our south pushing to the NE.

The Weather Prediction Center puts Bowling Green around the 1.5 inch range for total rain accumulation. This seems a little high to us therefore one inch of rain accumulation is what we're going with. Take a look below at what the WPC is forecasting!

Two day total accumulation, which goes through Wednesday afternoon issued from the Weather Prediction Center.

Days at a Glance

Tuesday - High of 38 with a low of 30. Rain moving in during the late morning to early afternoon and continuing through the night. Total rain accumulations of 1 inch expected.

Wednesday - High of 35 with a low of 21. Mostly cloudy skies, NW winds at 5-10 mph.

Thursday - High of 32 with a low of 21. Partly sunny skies, NW winds at 5 mph.

Our next storm system looks to move in Saturday night. Cannot judge if it will be a snow or rain maker yet, but be on the lookout for another update on this system Wednesday.

Forecaster: Brian Urbancic

Got Snow??? ...Winter Weather Bust

Many are waking up this morning expecting to look outside and see a winter wonder land. However, most are only waking up to some very minor sleet and snow accumulations. In general, there were not even any reports of up to an inch of accumulation. Thus, in our books this was admittedly a "busted" forecast on our part. Our forecast of 3-6 inches posted yesterday afternoon is not exactly the 0.1" we officially received. In other words, our forecast was as bad as having to sit through a Super Bowl in which the Broncos got routed 43-8 to Seahawks last night. We know there are questions as to what went wrong and we want to be open in not shying away from an error in the forecast. We also want to explain a little about why things didn't favor the snow in the end.

A picture of the dusting of sleet and snow in Bowling Green courtesy of @Wx_Or_Not. Certainly far from the significant snowfall which was forecast.

To open, this has always been an extremely difficult forecast. If you are a frequent reader of the blog you should have gotten that impression as we tried to emphasize the difficulty in forecasting this system in prior posts. We knew all along that Warren County/Bowling Green was right on the line. In the end, we provided our best forecast based on the data we had, given the high amount of uncertainty. Here are a few quotes from our posts outlining the uncertainly:

"Totals are tough to judge. What we know as of now, a heavy snow band with a tight gradient will set up tonight in Kentucky. Current data suggests Bowing Green will be on the tip of this heavy snow line." - Posted Sunday at 4:18 pm

"The dividing line will be very close to our area and if the temperatures in the atmosphere can cool off just enough early on, a transition to snow will occur earlier. If it can't though, it may be that areas just to our north are seeing snow while our area hangs on to rain for several more hours. Truly just a tough call." -Posted Saturday at 10:02 pm

Seems like the second quote ended up being exactly what occurred as we saw rain while areas just to our north saw winter weather (mostly sleet at first) as early as mid afternoon yesterday. In the end, an area of snow did occur, but we ended up being just outside of the area that received the snow. For the most part that band was concentrated along the Western Kentucky Parkway corridor and east into central Kentucky. Below is a rough estimate of the snowfall totals from the NWS in Louisville.

So here is the what did/didn't happen... keep in mind that a technical question requires a technical response, but I'll try to keep it simplistic. To best sum it up, we had an area of warm air above the surface which was just above freezing. This resulted in what started falling as snow way up in the atmosphere, to melt and fall to the ground as rain. Once temperatures dipped below freezing, this became areas of freezing rain as it froze on contact. Eventually, when the area of warm air became smaller so to speak, the precipitation fell as some sleet. The graphic below explains the difference between why we may see snow, sleet, freezing rain, and rain. The graphic is courtesy of the NWS.

While we knew some sleet and freezing rain was possible, we expected that warm area of air to cool faster than it did, thus giving an area snow and heavy snow at that. Below is a model interpretation from the SREF model indicating this area of warm air. Notice how close the temperature (the red line) is to the blue freezing line... just a minor shift in this line and we see a significant snowfall in our area.

This SREF model data of the temperature profile from the surface to the upper atmosphere shows an area of warm air above freezing which caused the falling snowflakes to melt. Just a slight decrease in these temperatures would have resulted in much more snow.

Finally, just to provide an example of some of the behind the scenes data that we analyze... the image below is a short range model (HRRR) that was put out Sunday afternoon indicating 12 inches of snow in our area. While we were not crazy enough to believe those numbers, it just goes to show you how difficult it can be to try to make the right forecast given the data that we have. This was certainly not the only model indicating a significant snowfall.

We hope this gives you some insight into the forecast difficulty with a system like last night's. In the end, we hope to learn from this system and have an improved forecast in the future as a result. We also apologize if our bad forecast resulted in taking unnecessary action; but always better to be over prepared than under prepared. Also note that the snow/sleet/freezing rain did result is some slick spots on roadways, so be careful if traveling this morning. Thanks all for your support and thank you for reading. 

Forecaster: Ryan Difani

Winter Storm Warning

Winter Storm Warning is in effect for the Bowling Green area from 5 PM Sunday to 6 AM Sunday.

With that being said good afternoon folks and welcome to an interesting weather forecast for the night. As of now our cold front has pushed through as our winds are from the northwest. Temperatures will continue to drop through the afternoon into the night with rain switching to snow  early this evening.

Purple dashed line indicates the surface freezing line. Notice the northwesterly winds advecting cold air.

Winds at the mid levels of the atmosphere are coming from the SSW providing sufficient moisture for the system moving through, with sufficient upper level energy. This transition zone is currently on the Ohio river and pushing to the southeast. The major question is what time is the change over to snow and how much can we expect in Bowling Green??

As of now the change over to snow looks to occur around 6 PM - 7 PM tonight. 

 

Moderate to heavy snow showing up in the 18Z data. This run is valid for early tomorrow morning. North of the blue line across Kentucky is snow.

Totals are tough to judge. What we know as of now, a heavy snow band with a tight gradient will set up tonight in Kentucky. Current data suggests Bowing Green will be on the tip of this heavy snow line. Three to 6 inches of snow is our current thinking for total accumulation in Bowling Green. Snow will push out around 6 AM.

Be careful during tomorrows commute and tonight as you travel to and from Super Bowl parties. Moderate to heavy snow may impact the area around 11 PM - 1 AM. Roads tomorrow morning will be slick and snow covered if we do receive 3-6 inches. Snow is nothing to mess around with!


Forecaster: Brian Urbancic

Rain & Snow Potential

**Winter Storm Watch from 3 pm Sunday to 9 am Monday.**

As mentioned in the last forecast discussion, wintry weather was possible from Sunday morning into Sunday night. It was also mentioned that the forecast for Sunday was a low confidence forecast. This was because of the large variability/uncertainly in the forecast computer models used to analyze the weather. Models have now come into good agreement on the chance of snow Sunday evening/overnight... the question remains how much and what time.

Currently there is a low pressure centered near the eastern Great Lakes with a cold front extending southward through the Ohio Valley. Scattered showers extend generally along the front back into Arkansas. This front and the associated showers are generally headed in our direction and thus scattered rain showers are expected overnight. Scattered showers should be moving into our area generally around midnight this tonight and will continue off-and-on into Sunday morning.

Tomorrow is when things get interesting because colder air will filter in overnight behind the aforementioned cold front. By tomorrow morning temperatures will have fallen around 40 and possibly as low as the upper 30s.

Temperatures will hold steady for the most part through noon as areas of scattered light showers or areas of drizzle continue. By around the noon time showers will once again be increasing in coverage as a result of a wave of low pressure which will ride northeastward along the slow moving cold front. By afternoon, steady rain showers will once again be spread across south-central Kentucky. All told, rainfall should be in the 0.40 to 0.80" range before a transition to snow will occur. Some locations could see up to an inch of rain.

NAM model valid for 9pm tomorrow. The blue line on this model is a rough estimation of where the rain/snow line will be. Notice that it cuts right through south-central Kentucky which is an indication of just how tricky this forecast is.

The time of transition from rain to snow is very tricky. Furthermore there could be a time of some sleet mixing in with rain and then snow and if temperatures cool quick enough at the surface, even a brief round of light freezing rain is possible. The best educated "guess" at a change over time is between 6 pm and 10 pm. I realize a 4 hour window is very large but even at this point, it is just to difficult to say. The dividing line will be very close to our area and if the temperatures in the atmosphere can cool off just enough early on, a transition to snow will occur earlier. If it can't though, it may be that areas just to our north are seeing snow while our area hangs on to rain for several more hours. Truly just a tough call.

Obviously, the time of changeover will affect the amount of total snowfall. If a transition to snow occurs earlier... in general more snow; if later... in general less snow. There also remain questions about just how much moisture will be fed into the area after the transition occurs. For now, I expect accumulations to be in general 1-3 inches though I wouldn't be surprised if some locations saw locally around 4". After snowfall begins to fall, temperatures will drop below freezing.

Regardless of the exact amount and even timing of the snow, the confidence of at least some snow with deteriorating driving conditions is high. Thus it is recommended not to travel during the late afternoon and especially the evening hours Sunday. Temperatures will drop into the upper 20s overnight Sunday.

Snow showers will end before daybreak. However, at least a few areas of flurries will remain possible through Monday morning.

Note that this forecasts has a lot of uncertainties at this time and some adjustments with the forecast are likely. Accumulating snowfall seems likely but the transition time and the total accumulation remain question marks. Brain Urbancic will provide an update with the latest thoughts tomorrow. Please check back for the updated information.

Forecaster: Ryan Difani