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Click on the above image to enlarge after reading this blog to take a closer look. Right now (9:00 am), we have rain, freezing rain, and sleet. As temperatures warm today, most (not all) will be all rain. As colder air moves in, we will change to all snow. The reason we are not all snow right now is that we are not below freezing through the entire column of air above.

In the above images, we have two of the most used models, showing the potential snowfall for today and tonight. Notice, many spots will see 1-3" of snow. Jonesboro may even see an inch.

If you are venturing out tonight, be aware, we could have some travel problems.

-Ryan

I'll admit, I have not been updating this blog as much as many would like, but to be honest... and this is brutally honest... I'm off work and I've been having fun with my family. With that said, I'm still a huge weather geek can't go too long without investigating this storm! The above image shows the warnings and watches as of 4:00 PM on Monday.

This storm is looking to be the real deal. We had one model that was holding out on a big snowfall and it has started to line up as well. While it is hard to swallow a foot of snow in parts of Region 8, it is starting to look more possible in areas.

Here is a GREAT map that shows the NAM model's shift to the south over the past few runs. This was the model that kept us rain for most of the snow until today...Notice, it now has Region 8 bullseyed for heavy snow. This is a model and not a forecast, but is worth noting! BIG, BIG thanks to Patrick Marsh at NSSL for making this map. I can't thank this guy enough...
Tune into Bryan tonight at 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00. Also, watch Sarah tomorrow morning. I'm going to be in the office when this starts falling tomorrow night.

In the meantime, do not stress about the snow! Enjoy this time with your family and celebrate the birth of our Christ. Be safe, get some food before 6:00 PM, and have a Merry Christmas.

Ryan

There is absolutely nothing more to add to the earlier blog. We'll know more in the morning. I plan on blogging about mid morning.

Take care!
Ryan

I just got home from visiting family in Nashville and I have NOT looked at a ton of data, so this blog post will be rather short. I'm off work today and tomorrow, but I still plan to dig into the data to help unfold this storm system with the team. The above image is the current Winter Storm Watch which has been issued for Region 8 for late Christmas Day into Wednesday morning.

Let's glance at a little bit of data. First, this is for those that don't want much snow. It's the BUFKIT profile from the NAM. The NAM has the low a little farther north and leaves us a little warmer. Many areas will still get 1-3" of snow, but many areas would miss out. Notice, for Jonesboro, we would likely switch back and forth from rain and snow through the afternoon on Christmas. Remember, the time-stamp goes from right to left on this program... Blue bars show snow, green bars show rain...
Now, for you snow lovers... This is the GFS. The GFS has the perfect setup for SNOW! And when I say snow... I mean snow! This keeps most of the heavy part of the storm as SNOW for us because the low tracks a little farther South than the NAM. In the graph below (which goes RIGHT to LEFT)... You see the showers from this morning... the snow on Christmas... and another system later in the week.

The above image/model, which is the GFS shows 7-10" of snow for Jonesboro. That's a model and NOT a forecast... yet. It seems a little aggressive for me, but we'll watch it.

The GFS is not alone. Several other models are showing big time snow for us. Here's a map of the RPM model. notice the swath of heavy snow! This would be quite a late day White Christmas!
That's all I have for now. I'm off work and I have some other things to take care of... BUT I hope to blog later tonight when more data comes in! I expect a new blog by 11PM.

Ryan

Almost every evening at sunset during this time of the year, even when we have clear skies, something pops up on radar near Big Lake. I'm almost 100% sure we are seeing flocks of geese and ducks. As I showed you in an earlier blog post, new technology allows us to see more with radar. Inside the scope, in the above image, in Correlation Coefficient. I showed this scale before, but the blues are very low CC values...

Notice, we are likely seeing "biological targets". So, in theory, we can now track ducks more accurately! I really feel this to be an episode of Duck Dynasty. Feel free to contact them and forward my blog. Get KAIT on the show! HAHAHA

Ryan

Ryan

We're heading into a new territory of radar technology and how we verify if there is or was a tornado in particular storms. Thursday morning (just before 2AM), there was a storm (outside of Region 8) moving through Jefferson County, AR. Since it was outside of our viewing area, I was not keeping a close eye on it, but a friend in Alabama, Brett Adair, was watching radar for fun and noticed something interesting.. In addition to seeing some rotation using the velocity (wind) product, he saw a "hole" of lower Correlation Coefficient values. He messaged me to take a look and sure enough... there it was. It was something we are now starting to call a "debris signature". Do you see the little "hole" of blue within our scope?  (CC in scope) Click the image to enlarge: 

It's not on Christmas morning, but would some snow on Christmas night count as a White Christmas? If so, we might see some hope in the future. The evening run of the GFS model is back to showing the chance of snow for Christmas night. We have hinted around about this for a few days, but I try not to get too excited until we get a little closer and we get the last storm out of the way. The closer we get, the more confidence we have in the forecast. Let's show you what the GFS has for Christmas night into the morning hours on December 26th:

I altered this map a little bit to make it easier to read. The blue line (540 dm thickness line) is often the unofficial rain/snow line. North of that line could be snow by Christmas night. I also changed the color of the precip to whites and grays to show where I think it may be snowing. I also clearly marked the center of low pressure.If this verified, we could see snow.

Now, let's look at this data on a graph. This is BUFKIT and remember, the timestamp on this graph goes from RIGHT to LEFT. Click to enlarge:
We use this program to look at the data in graphical form. There is a lot of info on here, but just look at the blue bars which shows snow! THIS IS NOT A FORECAST! This is just raw data. The raw data shows 3-5" of snow, but I would not get overly excited about that yet.

We've had a lot of flip-flopping on the models lately and I'm sure we will see some more, but with it being Christmas, I had to share the possibility with everyone. STAY TUNED! The new "Euro" data is coming in now. Check my Twitter feed for thoughts on it... That feed is on the right side of my blog if you are not on Twitter.

Ryan

When we make forecasts for 24-72 hours out, it is typically very accurate. To show you the difficulty of forecasting, I want to show you what we call "Ensemble" maps. Ensemble forecasting is a technique that takes several different datasets in attempt to obtain a representation of a storm system or pattern. Below is the GFS Ensemble spaghetti plot for 24 hours from now. It looks nice, neat, and in order. Forecasting 24 hours out, is not too difficult. The blue lines are the 540 decameter 500mb lines. (Roughly, the rain/snow line in a perfect world). It's pretty easy to point out the troughs (u-shaped features) and ridges.

If we look at the ensemble for 7 days out, it looks much different. Sure, the "mean" lines are plotted, but I think it is clear that the accuracy is much more suspect! I can even show these two images to my kids and ask which one looks less believable and they would say the 7 day Ensemble map.
I did not want to go in depth about Ensemble forecasting, but I did want to visually show you that nailing down a severe weather event or snow storm 7 days out is challenging. This is why we always say to "stay tuned for updates!"

We'll continue to try our best to nail the forecast, 7 days in advance!

Ryan

Here's a quick update on the chance for severe weather on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. As I said in the last post, the main ingredient that was lacking for severe weather was unstable air. The above image shows "CAPE" or the energy needed to drive severe storms. This animation covers the overnight hours. If you notice, the air is quite unstable early in the evening in SW Missouri and Western AR, but it fizzles as the night progresses.

What do I gather from this? Well, I thinking we will still see a squall line, but I think it will be DECAYING as it moves through Region 8. Let's hope so! I want to get a little sleep tomorrow night! (Selfish, I know)

Have a great night!
Ryan

Since we first started eyeballing Wednesday night as a possible period that we could see severe weather, the one ingredient that was missing was instability. This morning, the NAM model says... "Hey Ryan, the air make actually get quite unstable". Let me layout some bullet points to avoid any confusion and then we will unfold this...

• The front moves through Wednesday Night.
• The bulk of the precipitation will fall Wednesday night.
• With that said, rain is possible on Wednesday during the day as warmer air moves in.
• Main threat is straight-line winds.
• Secondary threat is hail and lightning.
• Lesser threat, but still concerning is the tornado threat.
• This should be gone by daybreak on Thursday morning.

There has been some chatter on Twitter and Facebook lately about the chance of snow in Region 8 in the near future. I even mentioned the "s" word briefly on TV. So, what are the chances that we could see some snow soon? Well, let's take a look at some data. Here's the evening data from the GFS model and if you are wanting snow, you won't like this run...

The above image (click to enlarge) is the BUFKIT program that we use to look at data. It does a great job of plotting the data in a graphical form. I have the temperature (red line), dewpoints (green line), precip (green bars), and a few other things on the graph. The time goes from RIGHT to LEFT.

First thing to note is that we are warming over the next few days. We could even  be 60 degrees by Saturday! As our next storm comes in, we will likely see rain and even a few storms. The next storm is the one that initially pointed at the chance of snow on Tuesday. I wanted to wait to get the evening data before posting this blog and I'm glad I waited.

After a few model runs showed snow for next Tuesday, it now looks like just rain and moving in a little faster. This would put rain in here in Monday. Here are some upper-level maps that show Saturday's storm. This first image shows where Saturday's storm is now:
If you notice in the above image, the storm is coming onto the west coast and will close up as it moves our direction... Let's fast forward a little bit to Saturday...
In the above image, we will be getting rain and maybe some thunderstorms for Saturday. The next storm will be coming in Southern California and set to impact Region 8 on Monday or Tuesday... Here's where it has changed...
In the above image, the storm system is moving through a little fast than earlier model runs. It's also not a closed low as indicated in earlier model runs. This does not show the cold air to support snowfall, but would likely just give us rain.

Here's the deal.... this could change back to a snow event, but as of right now... I'm not overly concerned. Stay tuned though!

Ryan

To my knowledge, KAIT is the first station in Arkansas to offer RadarScope on our website, free of charge. RadarScope has been a leader for radar products on Smartphones for quite awhile and now it is available on your desktop computer by clicking here. Bookmark that site for future use! There are some things to consider when using these products. For one, there are a lot of radar products that the general public will not understand. That doesn't mean that we should not make it available, just know that people are not experts just because they can access the data. But, there is a TON of information on this new feature! Lets first show you how to get started. This is what the page looks like when you go the link above AND click on the RadarScope tab:

You can click the image above to enlarge it. Notice that this is a "National Mosaic" which is not a high resolution radar product. This product is used to see radar from a wider perspective as seen above. The box in the lower-center part of the screen shows what product you are seeing. To access high resolution, click the button shown below. This will give you access to Level 2 radar from various radar sites...
Once again, you can see what product you are using by checking the lower-center box. The default for Level 2 radar is Single-Site reflectivity. This simply shows you where it is raining, snowing, etc. You can zoom down to street-level and track the storms! If you click on the products available, you can click several products, including velocity data! This is the data that shows you what the winds are doing within storms. We show this quite often in tornado coverage! I clicked on a radar site in Mississippi to show you a storm that has a tornado warning this monring. The first image is a little busy because I have the "warnings" turned on from the "i" button. The second image is just velocity:
You can also access the new "Dual Polarization" products from the radar. The one that might interest the general public more than anything is the Hydrometeor Classification. This is a product that tries to pinpoint "what" is falling from the sky. Rain, snow, hail, sleet, and even ducks at times! Keep in mind, due to the curvature of the Earth, the radar beam gets higher as it gets farther from the radar site. Sometimes, it may say "snow", but the snow is 5,000 feet above our head, melting and falling as rain. THERE ARE LIMITATIONS to most radar products. Here is an example of HC1:
My point is... we are offering a ton of information for you, BUT you have to know the limitations. If there is a tornado event going on, we will be on air to explain it. If there is a winter storm, we will be on air to explain it. You can grab a laptop and follow along now!

So, what are your thoughts? Feel free to comment, leave Facebook comments, or tweet me. Feedback is encouraged!!! I'll try to answer any questions in another blog post.

Ryan

The weather is going to be quite active today through tomorrow morning. We are waking up on this Sunday morning with above average temperatures and muggy air. There is a chance of severe weather today as a cold front enters Region 8. Hail and wind appear to be the primary threats, but tornadoes can not be ruled out. We will be watching it closely in the Region 8 Storm Center.

The above graphic is the 6Z NAM. It shows the warm temperatures (top red line), the rain, the unstable air (CAPE in line though rain), and the possibility that it could end in a few flurries or snow showers. Rememer, the timeline goes from RIGHT to LEFT. I know... weird.

The chance of snow is the most difficult part of this forecast. Some data has suggested some accumulation in some spots, but I'm not sold on that, yet.

I'm heading to Church, lunch with family, and basketball practice.... Today is my day off, but Bryan McCormick is going to be watching it closely as well. I'll be staying up to date with the latest data as well and will update Facebook, and especially Twitter through the afternoon and evening. If the weather gets severe, I'll be heading to work! B-Mac and myself are going to stay in contact throughout the day!

Stay tune!
Ryan

A lot of people are wanting rain. We're still in a drought and many duck hunters are needing a place for ducks to hang out this month! There are signs that the rain is coming.

We have some rain coming in tonight and tomorrow, which could bring 0.50"-1" to some areas. We have a chance of rain this weekend, also. This weekend, we could get a half inch in some spots... maybe. I want to focus on NEXT week though. Early indications are showing that 7-8 days from now, we could get some significant rainfall. The graphic below is the 48 hour rainfall total for next Tuesday morning.