Few things get the Bluegrass talking this time of year more than snow. We’ll just end some of the suspense right now, yes, we do expect to see snow starting sometime Thursday afternoon and lasting into Thursday night. We also expect a really nasty blast of Arctic air to accompany this system Thursday night into Saturday morning. Finally, one of the things that makes this forecast clearer at this point is that pretty much everything that falls should be snow. We won’t have that pesky mix and transition line that really limits our potential in most events.
There are critical variables that are still exactly that, variable. These will determine just how much snow we end up with. One of the keys we talked about in last night’s story was where and when does the surface low develops. As we’re getting closer to the event, the trend is for a slower and more south and east solution, which would keep us on the lower end of the potential. From this point on Tuesday afternoon for a Thursday PM event, the best chances for the most snow appear to be similar to Monday’s snow more south and east and in the high terrain of the Appalachians.
Our computer models are great tools and they’ve revolutionized how we do our work over the last few decades. However, they’re guidance and not gospel. After writing last night’s story that was published around 10:00, the new suite of models started arriving that were all much more aggressive for snow totals here. However, we don’t jump from model to model and run to run. We try and keep it good and steady for you right up to the event as this afternoon’s runs have backed off on the aggression. So, our message to you remains consistent from start to finish and doesn’t bounce with a dozen different forecasts for you to sift through. We’re letting you know that snow is likely Thursday, but for a lot of us it may end up in the nuisance category. You can get around, but you just need a lot more care and time to get from point A to point B. We’ll continue to monitor if that heavier band to our southeast wants to shift more north into the Arctic air.
We've gone ahead and put some numbers on this to give you an idea of what to expect. The bottom line is this will be impactful and centered on Thursday evening's commute and will slow a lot of us down so plan ahead. Stay with LEX18
