Daniel Boone

CMC and GFS Operationals  went in the crapper tonight. GFS manages to somehow pop a SE Ridge by New Years. Don't know how it came to that equation.?!?!

3 hours ago, John1122 said:

The cold that follows is one of the all time cold Christmas days. Wide spread single digits Christmas morning in the snow areas. Highs in the 10s and lower 20s, by 7pm Christmas evening already widespread temps in the 5 to 10 degree range. Unless SW flow aloft develops overnight into the 26ths, probably going to show up with some sub zero temps.

With pretty much all Data showing the bitter cold blast, weather media outlets are buying into a just cold shot.  Saw one such one, TV Met, go for a high of 36 Christmas . This person generally uses a Euro/GFS blend but, more times than not, the warmest solution.  Carvers probably knows who but, I won't call any names as am not trying to defame them.

      At this juncture, I'll only go as far as to say, it looks a pretty much sure bet of one colder than the run of the mill cold shots like yesterday's. Basically the type some weather outlets are showing. 

       I know many of them adjust to Climatology and also trend downward as the blast continues being progged as we get closer in time. 

Scattered lt. Sn showers here today. Went to Middlesboro earlier and noticed areas on Stone Mountain  in western Lee County had measurable snow in streaks. Alway down to about 1400 ft. In some places. More as u go up of course. Apparently some heavy snow showers or training streaks went over these areas. 

5 hours ago, weathertree4u said:

Next couple of days this system should come into better focus in the modeling but already appears there is at least some agreement of some type of system next week followed by colder temps.

Just place that solution 100 miles further East and we'd all still be fine.

Where I've not been in the game like I used to be due to health reasons,  I lost touch somewhat on Model "upgrades".

       From what I've seen so far at this juncture of the cold season, the latest GFS upgrade was way overdone in the modification of its flaws. As someone else noted, it is now the Dr. No..  

       Even with cold air advection and 528 to 534 DM line over our area with -8 850s , 2m T of 1C.  it'll  somehow manage to paint rain .?.. I, of course know that the great Valley does cause us to get the short end of the stick often but, not to the degree of the example here. Maybe it sees the Valley as all Chatt..j/k

      With the latest "upgrade"" I'm really curious to what was programmed into it and where that info/data came from . Mainly pertaining to our area.

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

There are continued hints right now of a strong amplification of an eastern trough between Christmas and Elvis's birthday - that has been discussed by many including Jeff.

Thank you,  Thank you very much !

27 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

RAP weenie run for the plateau:

With a setup like that, I have saw that pan out. The coastal pulls down or allows in place cold air to hold, therefore the incoming system produces front end snow. Sometimes a thumping b4 changeover. In a much colder environment the setup has produced all snow for parts of the area.

4 minutes ago, nrgjeff said:

Tonight and midweek systems still have some promise at higher elevations like the Plateau and Mountains. Perhaps even an upward surprise there. Lower elevations look too warm despite 850 Ts. Thickness and surface forecasts are not there.

Looking to the New Year models (ensembles and weeklies) all seem to be trending colder at the very end of December. We'll see if it holds. Failure modes include Alaska or Greenland. About a third of the member have both blocked, which is of course bullish.

 

Yeah, unless skies stay clear for a good while 2night, lower elevations are pretty much for sure out of luck. However, by the looks of it, timing regarding that is not good as clouds are rolling in in time to hold the days heating in.

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

I do think WxBell is a bit generous with its snow algorithms on the 3hr and 6hr maps.  Here you go for middle and west areas of the subform...Also, nice look for areas of SE KY and SW VA.

Let's hope the Euro still has a bit of a warm bias and more of the area gets in on some accs.

Over the last 10 years,  many places snowfall averages have decreased.  However, one area that has gone against that trend is Oklahoma. There was a time when Tulsa and Oklahoma Cities Snowfall averages were quite a bit lower than ours. 

      What has led to this "switch" ? Is it the warm Atlantic cycle, mostly +NAO,  or other ? 

Thought some of you all may find this interesting.  This is from the University of Virginia's Climate office. Wise holds the States official Seasonal Snowfall Record. 124.2 inches in 1995-96. I lived in Pennington gap, Lee County then and recorded 52" .

     Virginia Extremes:
 

2 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

12z EPS much better looking this run d10+ with a small PNA ridge and NAO block.  We can live with that.

Of course CPC bought the mild runs and ran with them in their 8-14 day.

1 hour ago, John1122 said:

Looks like the 18z American models are having issues. My friend has a few acres for sale at 2900 feet. So tempted to move but I'd have to sacrifice things like reliable internet and you know, build a new house plus convince my family moving to fulfill my snow obsession is a good idea when I can drive to 2900 feet in 5 minutes or so. It would probably double my snowfall yearly though. That extra 1200 feet makes a huge difference. I think that area here will probably get several inches of snow out of one or both systems next week. I believe the snow level was down to 2660 feet on a sounding I looked at that showed rain here during the overnight runs. I don't think there's any private land above 3000 feet here anywhere. The government owns it all in some form or another be it WMA, State Park or the Air Force I think owning the 3500+ land on Cross Mountain.  The top there averages about 55 inches of snow a year.

Would be nice to have a home on High Knob in Wise County. Back in the early 2000s Dave Dierks Chief Meteorologist on WCYB said the average there was 110 inches a Season. He listed the Ski Resort areas in NC and their average was 90 to 100". 

       Highknoblandform.com has alot of info. About the area.

12 hours ago, Met1985 said:

Yeah this has been a concern for me watching this play out. We will lose the blocking eventually and that look never produces for us. A cold Alaska does not really equate to a cold East.

The Models are picking up on the MJO signal in concert with the Niña forcing in the PAC. Screaming PAC Jet. 

      It is possible, a ridge may try to poke up occasionally in the NE PAC due to the warm SSTS there and an AK Vortex retro to Aleutians. That would be great. Hopefully,  La Niña will rapidly weaken and those NE PAC SST'S remain warm and blocking continues then, we'll be in business. 

48 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Thought I might take some time to look at why we are seeing some variability in modeling in the long range this morning.  Grabbed the CA OLR map (outgoing long wave radiation).  The cooler areas on the map indicate higher cloud tops and signal more convection(t-storms).  The first image is the CA(constructed analog) OLR map.  You can see the IO (Indian Ocean) go very quiet as the wave propogates(moves) from the MC to the dateline.  As a quick note, the MJO's favorable phases for winter weather are near the dateline(180).  So, days 11-15 would see the MJO move into phase 7(and maybe even 8,1) which is colder in NDJ (DJF is warm).  So, the phase 7 is sort of in-between the DJF and NDJ  by late month, and that causes a washed out signal since one three month analog is warm(DJF) and the other is cooler (NDJ).  The second map is from the GEFS.  The OLR there is locked into the MC(Maritime Continent) for the foreseeable future.  How modeling is handling the Indian Ocean and the MC is not consistent among different models IMHO.  Some models are taking the MJO through 4 to 5 to 6 and one would guess...7.  The EMON rotates through the circle of death.  The CA rotates at higher amplitude to 7.  The GEFS stalls the MJO.  In other words, models are all over the place with the MJO.  Take one look at the 500 maps for the major ensembles this AM, and you will see the model spread.

 

 

   

 

All of that said, we "might" see a more conducive Pacific later this month or even by January.  As I noted yesterday, if we can use the -NAO to bridge to the a better Pacific set-up later on...we might have a chance to stay seasonal(or slightly above) until the next legit cold shot - and that is a win if we like winter.  Why?  Normal or even slightly above will get the job done later this month.   Right now, I don't think I buy much after d15 - cold or warm.  I would say my confidence level is low.  If forced, I would say we will continue to see weaker heights over the SE for the foreseeable future with some ridges rolling through.  I do think there is a chance (if the -NAO verifies and we get even a temporary PNA or EPO) that we could see some colder temps rotate through.  I think the problem right now is the Atlantic block is muting what would otherwise be a total torch.  Computer models, like humans, are trying to figure out how much of an influence that block is going to have.  At the very least, we are going to likely see an active and stormy patterns with cutters and some Miller A(with marginal cold...increasingly colder as December averages take hold) stuff.  

References:

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjo.shtml  (CA stuff)

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/Composites/Temperature/ (phase correlation map of MJO to NA wx per three month increments)

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-mjo-and-why-do-we-care (phases of MJO by longitude)

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/CLIVAR/clivar_wh.shtml (various model output for the MJO)

Excellent interpretation and explanation Carver!! Logically laid out reasoning.

41 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Since I have been doing this as a hobby, I am not sure I can really remember tracking many -NAOs.  LOL.  I have lived through -NAO winters, but have not tracked many.  Pretty much anything is better than last winter's tracking options.  For real, how many -NAO winters have we had since 2000?

They're definitely fewer and further between than pre early 1980s. There's different hypotheses/theories on why. I think Wes Junker and maybe Anthony Masiello and some others discussed this pretty in depth several years ago on Eastern WB. Can't remember what their ideas were but, was interesting. 

I've witnessed several decent snowfalls here over the years with a crappy Pac but, pretty much always a strong -NAO. 

    The 60'S come to mind as the -PDO La Niña Winters all had decent snowfalls. -NAO dominated those years.

3 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Major changes on the GEFS extended for early January.  Fairly massive shift.  This is the daily run of the extended GEFS which rolls about this time each evening for the model suite I subscribe to.  @Holston_River_Rambler, do you have access to it?

Check that...shift begins Dec 28

If HLB can hold on while Niña rapidly weakens, we could really be in business, i.m.o... 

     Of course, the GW bunch that have so much to gain from it, may pay to have models hacked.  So, alot of folks would be caught of guard. Then we'd have fake Models or Forecasts, lol.

  All joking aside, wouldn't be too surprising actually, in light of all the proven fraudulence, lying and greed that's so prevalent nowadays. Sad, scary world.

Graupel here just b4 dark that dusted housetops, cars etc..

   Went to Big Stone Gap 2day and passed vehicles coming from Norton/Wise area that looked to of had about an inch on them.

1 minute ago, Carvers Gap said:

Nah, it is LR forecasting...we all eat our words often!  Great thing about our forum is we can throw ideas out there and take chances.  Only way to get better is not to be afraid to be wrong, right?  Definitely has a zonal look.  One thing I have noted is that the LR models have missed strong trough amplifications of late.  Anywhere where trends are heading BN may well be much colder as time gets closer.

Thanks for the uplifting comments buddy. That warm pool you mentioned may help pump a ridge there as you mentioned from time to time and mitigate that zonal depiction. That could work for us and maybe, I won't eat those words, lol.

Will add, looking at the last evolution of the esp run. It does go zonal even with the blocking. That AK Vort is suppressing the Niña forced Ridge but instead of it shifting east or west, it just flattens and thereby causes a screaming Pac Jet. Not good. So. I may eat my above words.

     Would be nice if that AK Vort would continue west and set-up along the Aleutians. 

11 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

The 12z EPS AO is at -2 in places.  So, looks like if we are going to have winter...the Atlantic is the ticket(think Jeff said as much in the winter thread).  The MJO continues to look putrid which is a surprise to me.  Would not be surprised to see it rotate over to 7, 8, 1 in a couple of weeks as some of the OLR maps show a diminishing wave over the warmer phase areas in the wester PAC and Indonesia. 

I'll say one thing, you can bet the monthlies will bust big time if that high latitude depiction is realized throughout the Winter at any sustainability.  Those Monthly runs put alot of weight in ENSO .

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

Sneaky system for NE TN and SW VA tomorrow.  Looks like light rain in the valley, but if this comes in over night with a period of clearing right before onset....

Think that's the biggest concern for the lower elevations.  The longer the clear skies 2night the better.  Problem is, it's already beginning to cloud up. Worst case scenario; cloud up during afternoon as that seals in the daytime heat build up , then remain cloudy up to precip onset.  Don't you just hate that if you're a snow lover.?!

1 hour ago, John1122 said:

Ended up with .72 of rain from this system. The soaking continues. We are likely to experience another epic drought before long. Something will have to balance the three year barrage of rainfall here.

It was wet here in Lee County up until last Month. It was way below average here. Only 1.4 inches of rain ! Just.43" yesterday.  The last 3 systems have produced much less than forecasted. Snowfall fro the other day was more than models projected for the County.

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

To echo what John said above, the 0z EPS d10+ was a significant improvement, and an example of how we stay in a colder pattern with the AK vortex.  The tricky party of that is a -NAO/-AO couplet, and it has been some time since we have seen that feature stay for long periods of time during winter.  Might this be that winter?  I don't know.  That said, the 0z EPS has a decently consistent negative AO/NAO couplet.  This creates a feature which has been unusual during the past decade.  That feature is BN heights in both AK and the Southeast US.  That can happen, but help from the Atlantic is usually how that occurs.  One final comment...as I went to pull these up, it appears the big change is the AO over the past few runs of the EPS is actually more negative.  

Right along you John and my thoughts  yesterday of the "how" to get a favorable pattern even with the AK Vort.