From One Extreme to the Polar Opposite...

Today: 28 degrees and sunny. Next Weekend: 65 degrees with severe storms.

These two forecasts look like upstate NY and Pensacola Florida at this time of year. Oddly enough, this is Louisville's forecast.

Today's snow will melt in a flash tomorrow. Tuesday-Wednesday looks wet. That's only getting started though.

Next weekend a large low is forecasted to come over N. Indiana. What does that mean? Well, you've probably heard of the nasty tornadoes and severe storms rolling through Louisiana and Florida. Translate those storms 400 miles north and that's what is going to happen here (although not as bad due to lower temps than there).

Those severe storms have been produced by our recent low pressure systems barreling across southern IN. In the winter, you get heavy snow on the North side of these, and severe weather on the south. In the middle, where Louisville has been, you get little or nothing. So now we are on the south side.

I want to urge you to keep an eye on this system next weekend. Let me put it this way, Saturday may push 70 degrees. Sunday will be in the 30's. A temperature change like that never comes quietly. Do I want to pop in the "T" word for us? I do not know at the moment, I need more data on the convection and exact storm placement before I can even begin to talk about twisters. I've seen some meteorologists stop just short of saying that though today, although they really didn't say if the threat was going to go this far north.

Now, now, now, don't get into a crazed rampage because I said the word tornado. The last time we had a tornado in Louisville that actually did some damage was 1974. My theory is that our geography inhibits tornado formation.

Why? Look at Iroquois Park, it is the highest point in the city. Any storm system that would want to spin up a tornado has to pass over Iroquois Park. Due to its elevation, this would break up any cloud formation and disrupt convection. This theory checks out because places like OK, KS, and NB are notoriously flat, which breeds tornadoes.

Enough about theories. How about that snow out there? I went sledding today for the first time in 2 years! It's a bummer that this is probably the last snow event for the season, although it was better than last year (a total of 0 "sleddable" snowstorms). I don't know, maybe March will surprise us with a major storm...