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Forecast not looking good for any snowmen…
Today 3/4 – Partly Cloudy & Cold – High 31˚ / Tonight – Partly Cloudy – Low 14˚
3pm 31˚ ~ 6pm 28˚ ~ 9pm 24˚ ~ 12am 21˚ ~ 3am 17˚ ~ 6am 14˚
The snow and ice is still around this afternoon as temperatures are struggling to even hit the freezing mark today. Luckily, there have been some peeks of sun today, which has allowed for some minor improvement to road conditions around the area. With that being said, most of the snow and ice will not melt today.
Usually, snow cover in March melts very quickly due to a higher sun angle & above freezing ground temperatures. However, sleet holds more water content than snow, which means it takes longer for the sleet to melt. The good news is that conditions do look much better for melting all this snow and ice the rest of this week.
When there is snow and ice cover on the ground, it can be difficult to forecast temperatures. The snow and ice cover lowers the amount of solar radiation the ground can absorb, and makes our temperatures much colder than they usually would be. This is certainly the case tonight as skies will remain partly cloudy and temperatures will tumble into the teens across the area. This could mean some refreezing on roads and black ice, so use caution driving tonight and Wednesday morning.
Wed – Partly Cloudy – High 40˚ / Wed Night – Cloudy – Low 31˚
Wednesday will be a much nicer day than today, as temperatures look to go above freezing by Wednesday afternoon. Partly cloudy skies will give the sun a chance to melt most of the snow and ice. Clouds will increase tomorrow evening ahead of a system moving to our south. Precipitation looks to stay south of the state line but the cloud cover will keep temperatures from falling too much tomorrow night and lows look to be right around freezing for southern Kentucky.
Thu – Mostly Cloudy, Iso’d Showers – High 43˚ / Thu Night – Partly Cloudy, Iso’d Showers – Low 25˚
A very interesting pattern sets up on Thursday as the jet stream branches into two separate streams right over Kentucky. This is called split flow, and our weather will be quiet for the most part as we sit in between a northern and southern branch of the jet stream. Here is the NAM model showing its forecast for pressure and vorticity (spin) at the 500 mb level (5-6km above surface) for Thursday evening. Notice that the jet stream splits into two directions indicated by the black arrows.
Circled in red is what is called a cutoff low. Notice how it is an area of low pressure cut off from the main jet stream flow. This will cause precipitation on Thursday, but surface high pressure to our north should keep most of this precipitation suppressed to our south. A few stray showers are possible Thursday and Thursday evening before the system moves off to the east.
Skies will clear overnight on Thursday and lows will drop into the middle 20s. Winds will turn to the southwest and continue on Friday allowing for a beautiful day to end the week with temperatures in the 50s. That’s all for this afternoon, follow @WarrenCountyWX and @Wx_Or_Not for more frequent updates. Enjoy the rest of your day!