BlunderStorm

2 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

WxBell has not updated yet...where are you looking at it?  I did check it out on Pivotal.  

Just pivotal.

The GEFS just keeps looking better and better. Check it out at 114 hrs.

20 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

You all love those northwest flow events...I just roll my eyes.  I stare at the radar, and SE KY just eats all of those returns.  I keep hoping a band will sneak over the mountains.   Sometimes, like today, we see decent northwest flow...but it has to be at the correct angle.  

Northwest flow snow is geographical positioning and luck above all else. Elevation doesn't always get the job done for these things. It may help but it won't save the day in elevated valleys. Big A causes downsloping like clockwork for every NWF event. I see the snow showers come charging in and virtually hit a wall at the county line. Had that snow squall not slid in just right I'd have been reporting a glorified dusting of 0.2 in like yesterday. You know it's a good day to be a weather lover when snow is coming down hard as you mark observations and your looking at the modeling for a potentially much bigger event in a few days.

3 hours ago, AMZ8990 said:

That’s awesome man,  sounds like a fun day!!

Thanks, looks like I can call today's snow accumulation early. In total 1.5 inches fell with some flurries/light snowfall both before and after the snow squalls. This brings the seasonal total just under 3 inches. Note: I'll post some images later when I get the time to. At some point I'll start an album and just send a link to it.

2 minutes ago, Blue Ridge said:

Curious why such a hole over Unicoi, Carter, Johnson, and Washington Counties exists. Mixing or downslope?

I would think downslope out of the two but I don't know what causes such a dramatic difference.

8 minutes ago, kwolfe904 said:

I’ve been lurking on this forum as well. I live in Lexington, KY and just moved a few months ago from Kansas City area. I know I’m not Southern KY, but this forum is more my area then the Ohio Valley forum.

Welcome aboard, It's ok to blur the boundaries a little, Mountain Man is in southern West Virginia and we often get visited by posters in the deep south and Arkansas.

2 hours ago, caitsaunt said:

I've read every word of this thread, I'm enjoying following the speculation. I have a question about travel, too.  I am driving from Opryland to Chattanooga Sunday morning. I'm mainly worried about Monteagle - any thoughts? 

Most model guidance would suggest it will be too warm for snow on Sunday in southern Tennessee. That said nothing is really set yet so I would keep a sharp eye on the forecasts, models, and forum discussion for the next day or two.

Just now, Holston_River_Rambler said:

Welcome! As things stand now, you are well placed for this one! 

3 minutes ago, Mountian Man said:

Hello everybody I’m been lurking for a long time. I live in the mountains of southern Wv. I love this forum. 

Climatically your better off than all of us. We have quite the storm coming up and you could be standing at ground zero. Welcome to the Tennessee Valley it's nice to see someone to the northeast of Honaker. 

A great run of the Euro here with 1.3 in. IMBY atm! Yahoo!

1 minute ago, Carvers Gap said:

Should be a nice run for NE TN.

Glad to hear it. I look forward to seeing the map.

3 minutes ago, AndyHamachek said:

So am I still looking ok to leave from Athens ga Friday evening heading to pigeon forge going to wedding Saturday in Gatlinburg and then heading to Dixie stampede Saturday night in pigeon forge and leaving Sunday mid morning to return to Athens ga?

If you stick to I-75 heading back you should be ok. You may be able to pass through the blue ridge if the storm fell on the warmer side of possibilities but I wouldn't risk it.

Absolutely beautiful outside right now. A snow squall is passing over with bursts of 2-3 in. an hour rates. Some of the snow is coming down over an inch in diameter. I finally got my share haha. Since it's arrival the temperature has dropped a whole 5 degrees from 32 to 27! UPDATE 1: Temperatures have risen back to 29 but it is still snowing at a light to moderate rate. Soon, I will take a measurement once this period of snow ends. UPDATE 2: Another smaller snow squall is currently (1:14 ) passing over with more heavy rates. UPDATE 3: A good 1.3 inches of snow IMBY fell in the last hour and a half. A few snow showers may follow after but this looks to be the end of the snow squalls.

It helps that the storm begins overnight. I don't think it will help us much off the surface though.

I've managed to dodge most bands of snow but I'm not complaining. I hope your getting hammered over there John.

Good morning everyone. Well looks like I was "snowed in" for a quarter of inch of snow. I don't care  why I'm just glad to have a break midway through the week for model watching. After viewing 6z I'm feeling more comfortable than I was last night. The ICON has believe it or not improved but is far from ideal here and certainly not in Tennessee.

For a bit there I wasn't sure how bad the news on the Euro was so I avoided checking and instead watched it as it played out slowly which I often do when I expect to be disappointed.To my surprise there was just a loss of 2 inches give or take another and the storm followed a similar route as the other model guidance. The run acts as a reminder of how shaky they can be over 3 days out.

10 hours ago, nrgjeff said:

I promised some TROWAL explanation on the Dec 8-10 storm thread. Trough of Warm air Aloft stands for TROWAL. It often happens behind an occluded front/system. One can easily find cross section diagrams of an occlusion with a web search. However these two images show what I'm looking for when forecasting. 

Here it is on satellite, an old storm over the Great Plains. Bring it baby!

On an 850 mb chart (also 925/700) one can see WAA from the north, vs usual southeast. Average comma head is associated with the cold conveyor belt, and some split off the warm conveyor belt. Usually the better precip is off the more robust warm conveyor belt. (Conveyor belts are also an easy web search.) TROWAL feature is interesting because it can amp up the normally secondary comma head. WAA is notable into the comma head.

Example below is ECMWF forecast valid Monday. Most of the snow has fallen, but the 850 mb chart shows it better at the end of the event. Note WAA from north to south. Favors I-40 north. CAA south of I-40 shuts off precip.

Thank you for the explanation. I had a partial understanding before this just picking up on things but this really cleared things up.

It's very hard to pin down but I think I will mark Tuesday as having 0.2 in. Temperatures have gradually cooled and it is now 30. Some increased snow shower activity to the WNW of me is making it over Big A Mountain surviving the downslope.

24 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Waiting on the maps from other places that may be more accurate. 

Well temperatures both on the ground and at 850mb seemed good. I saw no ice or sleet so the upper layers seemed to be in agreement with the surface with the exception of a little zr over Kentucky at the beginning. Other than Tropical Tidbits possibly failing to accurately depict snowfall accumulation it would seem to accurately depict what the FV3 was showing. I'm sure the snow depth maps will be less impressive but what else is new? It's funny to think that I am trying to judge the accuracy of something that depicts something that predicts the future condition of the atmosphere with the use of advanced algorithm with countless calculations applied by people who collected data that others observed. Now I have a headache. It's an amazing time to be alive.

Tonight the GEFS shows a minor improvement over it's last run for Tennessee. The most notable change is an increase in the area of significant snowfall in West Virginia and Virginia. It looks like there is a movement to the north of the heaviest snowfall in the Carolinas but it's pretty insignificant.

7 hours ago, John1122 said:

I never thought I'd say this, but 3 feet of snow might be too much even for me.  I can't imagine the power line wreckage. 

It takes a yard of snow on the ground to entirely stop my desire for more.

And also...   ICON

8 minutes ago, Bango said:

Rehashing my mind, nam tends to have a cold bias and higher precip bias, correct? 

And for those of us in the northeast tn or southeast ky, we want a little weaker high (but not too weak?)

Well to be fair I was just looking at the pressure with that. The actual storm is still out of range anyway. To be honest I'm not sure of what exactly we want to see for that. I would guess it depends on the circumstances of everything else around it and how that would progress outside of it's range. As a general rule though I do believe you want to see a strong high that limits WAA and aids in CAA. As to if that applies in this case? I leave that stuff to Jeff.

The High is looking stronger, further south, and laid out somewhat differently at the end of the most recent NAM. Now we await the ICON which I keep at the very low standard of snowing in the region at all anywhere.

I thought I'd go ahead and steal this from the SE forum. Something to gaze at before 0z. I hope we get FV3 back.

1 minute ago, PowellVolz said:

 

Good news


.

 

Now if that could translate to something on an operational I'd feel better...