First things first of course... The Monday-Tuesday system will produce some light snow and even some freezing rain in some cases. Not quite like what we had last week, but perhaps just enough to cause problems. If any area sees an inch out of this system I would be totally shocked. I painted a pretty broad brush with around 1" since this isn't a significant snow. Not that any wintry weather should be underplayed... but this one just doesn't have the wow factor like our previous systems.

So pretty much 1" or less.

Now you want to know my thoughts on the weekend storm. BAH HUMBUG! Those are my thoughts... LOL

One of the better handling models for wintry systems is the EURO or actually known as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting the real abbreviation is ECMWF. It's just easier to say EURO! Anyway... it normally handles these systems pretty well from a few days out and it has a pretty southern track at this point. We'll watch it very closely and see when it takes a significant blink!

These are two different runs with very different results. Check the location of the low on the GFS on Saturday morning... the Carolina border! Then by Saturday afternoon it is making its way off the east coast of the United States. At the same time... the EURO has the low out in the Gulf Of Mexico. By the afternoon it works into the panhandle of Florida.

With a track as far north as the GFS is taking you'd have to throw in a mixing round of precip. With the EURO that isn't a question that I have. Either way... wintry weather is coming. I will detail it more as the week progresses. 

Here's the very early runs of the GFS snowfall forecast.

The good folks at the NWS Jackson released a very interesting report... check it out!

While winter "officially" starts on Tuesday, unofficially this winter is already long in the tooth.  Snowfall has piled up in many areas so far this month with observed accumulations already 50% to 75% of what we should see in an entire winter at many reporting locations.  At the National Weather Service Office in Jackson, the 14.9" of observed snowfall is 61% of the 24.5" which normally falls over an entire winter season.  This is the snowiest start to a winter season since records began in 1981 at NWS Jackson!  If we don't receive any more snow this month, December 2010 will go down in the record books as the 2nd snowiest December at Jackson, behind the 17.6" of snow which fell for the month just last year.

Below is a graphical depiction of snowfall amounts through the first 2 1/2 weeks of December across east Kentucky...

As one would expect with such heavy early season snow, temperatures are also running well below normal.  In fact, this is the coldest first 19 days of December on record at NWS Jackson.  Here are the stats for coldest first 19 days of December at the station.

Rank  Value   Year
  1    26.1   2010
  2    29.1   1989   3    33.1   2000

Weather records at the London Corbin Airport go back much further, all the way to 1954.  At London, this is also the coldest first 19 days of December on record.  Here are the stats for London... 

Rank  Value   Year
  1    26.9   2010
  2    29.4   1958
  3    29.8   1963

I'll have more odds and ends coming soon!

C-Ya Bye