Holston_River_Rambler

West TN just got NAM’d

No worries @jaxjagman or @Daniel Boone I was trying to ride a line between serious and funny.

I've got the H5 gifs from the January system. It looks to me like the EPO knocked the cold our way and then the NAO modulated the TPV in central Canada in just such a way so that the moisture aimed at the the TN Valley. I don't have the H5 gifs for afterwards though. Alphabet soup indices incoming: I hate to break solidarity with the TRI folks, but I am more of an EPO/ PNA person. This is not an attack on y'all. I love you and want you to live! But y'all can do better with a -NAO that the rest of the TN Valley. If we hadn't had the EPO dislodge the cold and the PNA spike, the TPV that drove the flow beneath it and aimed the moisture at us, might have been pushed by the NAO back to Seattle. (-PDO FTW then?) -NAO 100% helped in that situation, but there was an arm of the TPV acting as a 50/50. I've decided it is not the NAO I want for storms here, it is a semi permanent 50/50 low. You know how the troughs seem to magically try to always drop into the Southwest these days, I want a trough to be like that in the 50/50 spot. You don't have to worry about the NAO then. There will automatically be higher heights over the Davis Straits and Greenland in response to the 50/50. Kind of like Jax's pic above. I guess we have to wait until the AMO flips, or as the Capital Weather Gang alleged a few days ago, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning (another AMO) dies and the Atlantic dramatically cools. Honestly I think the January storm was a very rare set up in terms of the Continental synoptics. I don't think 8-10 inches of snow is as rare as some of the news folks who were saying this was our biggest snow since '93., but the TPV being in just the right place at just the right time and to have the NINO STJ there too was unique. It really was like a colder, drier version of my rainy "firehose" pattern, like we saw yesterday in some parts of the state. Lord have mercy, how I would love to see the .qpf we had yesterday and overnight as snow! Flooding gifs. Discussion of the MJO and SSWs. EPO vs. NAO. It must be February in the TN Valley! We need the guidance of the elk more than ever in these godless, commercial times. @Greyhoundhave you taken the abomination down yet? It may wish to be removed. Not blaming you or anything, but creepy metal snowmen can be fickle. Glad to see the 6z GFS showing more cold in the long range. Even got some TN Valley snow under 200 hours! OP Euro still bringing some cold on the 0z run too. This latest SSW looking less impressive to me lately, but I think we will see some atmospheric fallout around mid March. Welp, I'm off to float down the road in my raft. Will post pics if I survive or catch any food to feed the neighborhood.

I'm probably gonna A) be wrong and B ) get a comment about slinging spaghetti on a wall but I think we are about 7 - 10 days away from seeing a meaningful end to this cluster of a pattern we've been in. I was really hoping about this time last week we'd see some better signs by yesterday or today and yeah the Euro above is nice, but I'd like to see all ops at least showing a way out. Doesn't have to be an epic look. Doesn't mean it has to show snow. All I'm asking is for two weeks without a trough slamming into California. Hopefully the Euro is the first hint of changes brewing. That satellite imagery Jeff posted yesterday is not too encouraging, but if we can believe the GEFS RMM today (updated late) the mean splits the difference of 30 members between several big phase 8-1-2, several CODs, and several, I guess, status quos: I especially like the one member that goes back to phase six and stays there for a week. GFS OP likes the COD. I still think it lo amp/ borderline traverses COD 8-1-2-3. If it plays out like it did in January, our best chance for a January redo may be around the Raindancewx date of March 1.

I have to think precip. won't be a problem and bowling ball lows in a few weeks. Even though the Maritime continent shallow ocean heat is still intense, the past few weeks have seen the biggest winter time SOI drops since I've been posting. The end of that Euro run was nice, if you like cold. Looked like shortwaves getting slung its way too.

I think we've been fighting that since I've been typing on this site, lol.

Looks like it also snows/ wintery mixes in CAD regions of NC for something like 36+ hours

Euro is at least looking like it wants to drop a hunk of frigid air south after about 190 hours.

I think it just depends on where you are. I could def. see SE TN dodging the higher totals. You get moreSE ridge and I get the firehose.

Look at this beautiful microwave precipitable water imagery: Double tap action engage! Eastern and Central Pac precip train! The Pacific is lining em up

seriously though:

Got the lightning here now, too.

Saw two trees budding out today in Ridgefields area of Kingsport. One almost at the point Bays Mt and the Holston River meet.

12z GFS at hour 190ish looks beautiful. I’ll take that look even if it ends suppressed later in this run.

We had one single variable we could control—the elk. But some godless blaspheming heatherns in Coalfied ran it off.

@John1122 whatchya got for March 20 - 25 1998?

I don't know, I'm kind of in a delayed, but not denied state of mind (á la Carver I think) when it comes to this epic pattern some folks in the MA and on southernwx have been honking about. I still think the "Whirlpool of Death" we've been stuck in, in phase 7 of the MJO, is throwing long range modeling for a loop. If I had to draw an image up today of how I might predict the MJO RMM plots to full out until the end of March, it would look like this: Blue is February and red is March. If I had to cite any evidence, I would use the 1 and 2 week verification of the GFS one week: two week: Models have consistently tried to kill off the wave (as other have often noted), but it has REALLY gotten bogged down in the western Pac this time. The other wild card is the SSW. Last time we had one in mid Feb it just made for an absolutely brutal spring. Late season freezes, but never cold enough for snow. That was a moderate La Nina though, so I'll withhold judgment about how this constructively or destructively interferes with the pattern until mid March. If all else fails we have the Raindancewx model. Once again, despite his abrasive demeanor, he has done a better job than many of the other long range folks, at least in the Americanwx El Nino thread. He's calling for a repeat of our ("fluky" as he called it) Jan snow around March 1 and then a cold and stormy March, a combo of 73, 83, and 98. Specifically he used the March 1983 snow in the south, but offset a couple of hundred miles NW, which puts the southern Apps and east TN in the crosshairs. It also looks like there was one in March 1998, but I'm going to have to play around with old radar data to make sure it is the one I'm thinking about. Eventually these Pac jet extensions have to end or at least let up, right? I remember several people (grit/ webb/ 40/70) were speculating this one might not be as bad as the one in Dec, but heck, I think this one has ended up worse.

But hey, for those worried about the ongoing drought, at least we get to taste the atmospheric river that has been slamming CA: That water vapor brings back fond memories.

Now John you know as well as I do that we have to get the trees budding out before the late season cold comes.

Very normal tornado in Wisconsin in early February. https://x.com/samkraemertv/status/1755754107149717630?s=46&t=KMZWtmm9xSWkLJtvZXn39g

Red in the morning, elk lovers take warning:

Y'all have me looking at jobs in Watertown now, lol. In other news, anyone at TRI and SWVA see the 0z Euro:

Just as a comparison, here is the Himawari imagery from the time of SSW in 2019: Here is todays: Thoughts? (apologies for one being visible and one being infrared, I could only see visible imagery for the historic database) For me they do look somewhat similar, but remember that the SSW in 2019 was happening in the visible image, we still have a couple of weeks, if it does happen.

Actually just went back to Jan 2019 discussion and found this (image is a screenshot, post was from Eric Webb): I think we chased the pattern for all of January and finally got the Dayton leeside micro low "revenge of the strat storm" that gave Blount and Sevier counties a few inches, but that was it.