WEATHER CONCERN: Significant Winter Storm Late Week in Southern KY, MAYBE Here?

There's concern developing about a possible winter storm in the second half of this week. We knew the pattern had to reload before we plunged back into the deep freeze... we knew it would mean a big storm somewhere... and now we look to be near, maybe even IN, the crosshairs here across the Tri-State.

Currently, the models are forecasting a storm to come down from the northwest on Wednesday. This one will set the stage for the more significant storm from Thursday into the weekend. It could drop a quick 1-2" Wednesday night into early Thursday.

The BIG problem will come out of the southwest. A rather deep wave is being progged to move across the south on Thursday and Friday. The Global Forecast System model has been a little faster, and the European a bit slower. If you caught my tweets earlier today at the NKYWx Twitter page you know that the Euro showed temps at 5,000 feet below freezing and .52" of precip over the period from Friday morning to Sunday morning. At a ten inches snow to 1 inch liquid ratio, that's 5.2" of snow. Am I saying we're going to get 5.2" of snow? NO... but that's the raw output. HOWEVER... with cold air in place following Wednesday's cold front... the precipitation should be mostly or all snow... which should mean accumulations are possible. Our friend Derek Beasley, chief meteorologist for WPMI 15 out of Mobile, Alabama, says some models showed a foot possible across Kentucky south of Interstate 64! 1 foot of snow, for the uninitiated, could shut down Lexington or Louisville for at least a day - one only has to look back to March 2008 for the most recent 10"+ storm in Louisville itself. And we all know what that March '08 storm did here.

Again: We're NOT officially calling for a foot plus anywhere. But there's a real threat that SOMEBODY is going to get a foot and maybe more.

SHORT TERM: Sorry - we forgot to talk briefly about what's happening here in the next 36 hours. You can expect snow to move across the area tonight. Most locations will receive 1" or less - but that 1" will be tough to measure as it'll get blown around a bit. Beyond that, there could be more scattered activity tomorrow, and then tomorrow night it shuts off briefly before the aforementioned cold front Wednesday night.