MikJournal Monday 12/26/2016

Good morning. Wow. Last night's dense fog and 50 degrees led to me waking up this morning to a balmy 64 degrees with a few stars shining above. I had to check the calendar on my phone just to make sure I didn't hibernate through the winter. It really feels like Spring out there.

But, of course that won't last too long. More on that in a moment.

First, I updated the Mesonet site's wettest of the wet for this year. You can find this on the side of the blog. What a contrast in amounts of precipitation this year.

Western Kentucky leads the way with a ridiculous 80+" near Murray. However, here is a 'hmm factor'. Using the Great Circle formula calculating the coordinates between Murray and nearby Hickman to the west, I came up with about 50 miles as the crow flies that separates them. But, the quantitative precipitation disparity between the two locations is rather enormous. Hickman's precipitation readings is one of the driest locations in the state, coming in at 41.68". In other words, Murray has received nearly twice the amount of rainfall than Hickman in just that short amount of distance. If there are no quality control issues at these Mesonet sites, which I am not aware of any, a difference of some 40" over 50 miles is simply amazing, nearly unprecedented for our region.

Well, there has to be a driest of the dry, right? In Nicholas county, 37.91" has been tallied through yesterday. In fact, several areas around and including Lexington's Mesonet site are reporting under 40" for the year.

But, for many of us, drought concerns are easing substantially. So, now let's get on to winter already.

I looked at the snowfall analysis for December 25, 2016 and compared that with last year. You remember last December, don't you? One of the warmest Decembers on record.

Well, here is a breakdown of how much ground was/is covered by snow....

National (12/25/15):  37.2%
               (12/25/16):  44.1%

Midwest (12/25/15):   9.7%
               (12/25/16):  16.7%

Nothing too impressive, although regionally, the percentage for 2016 does compare favorably with 2014.

Speaking of snow, when are we ever going to see some snow covering our grounds? Well, we do have to be patient. It seems with all of that cold air we have had recently, we expected more opportunities for some type of accumulating snowfall. Storm systems were just a bit too strong, being able to draw up Gulf warmth thereby providing more rainfall instead.

While I am not dancing-on-the-ceiling optimistic about snowfall chances over the next 10 days, I am a bit optimistic that some may see some whiteness on the ground before January 7. Afterward, things may get rather interesting region wide. Clashes of cold air and a possible strengthening of the SE ridge may make things interesting around here. But, I'm still digesting data and looking at other signals, as computer forecast models still aren't up to the challenge of giving me anything to work with.

I will be putting out my January prediction later this week.

Have a good day and a good week.

MS