Holston_River_Rambler

About over it at this point. Glad for the often shafted western areas, but for MBY, this winter has been a little bit of a disappointment. We finally had the fabled -NAO, during one of the best climo times for us and, even at some elevation on the plateau, I was dealing with mixing and boundary layer issues. It seems to help the pattern, but it needs arctic air to redirect our way. An example of how important the Pacific pattern is. Yeah the NAO kept us from being too warm, but I would prefer an occasional torch at this point that to the marginal BS we've had. It's been so cloudy. I miss the sun and the stars. I think I would trade every event up to this point, to be in the bullseye for this upcoming storm. Like tnweathernut, these marginal, nickle and dime events are getting old to me. I want a real winter storm. But it seems like I back into one marginal event a year, that falls out in my favor. Will the AMO change things up in the next decade? Does ENSO even matter any more? Like I posted above, we've had the same pattern problems in FEB with every ENSO state. It def, does seem like the SSW had an impact, but to be honest, I'm not sure there's much point in chasing them, other than to note that 3 - 4 weeks after one, we could see more blocking, if the base state is receptive. Do we need a Bond or Heinrich Event at this point? Like Old Ed Rupp used to say on WBIR, "Come on, Spring!"

6z Euro. jogged a bit west:

Overnight UKMET:

SREF H5 and vorticity trend for the past 6 runs: Looks deeper for 0z than any of the past 6. Will this mean a deeper dig for the energy on the NAM? Colder for eastern areas? It seems to work only 75% of the time. We'll know in about an hour.

18z EPS members Just for the pure weenage of it, the 18z EPS mean through 144 hours:

18z Euro:

Several of the 18z GEFS members are coming in a wee bit (and I don't mean that sarcastically) east of the OP:

For anyone wondering who Mark J is, he is a forecaster at NWS Louisville who sometimes writes parts of their AFDs

The Australian forecast model looks good through the next 168 hours

I think its pretty close to the eastern edge of the plateau. Temp dropped from 43 to 36 as I drove from Oak Ridge to Mossy Grove (just south of Wartburg).

I might faint: " The sleet could be heavy at times. " from my point and click forecast for Monday night. I've haven't seen "heavy at times" for anything other than rain in like 20 years...I think.

Man, what a jet buckling. A baroclinic leaf, with someone in TN in a perfect areas for ye olden fatties:

Hard not to like the 18z RGEM sounding over central MS, upstream of the plateau: Look at that forcing in the DGZ.

Well, y'all know I'm a sucker for the Ukie, so here is the extended 12z: Lawd have mercy for Middle and west TN: keep in mind that snow map is through hr 168.

I've not missed 3 pages of discussion on here in like 5 months, lol. I'm just gonna wait for the 18z Euro and pretend no other runs happened.

Anything exciting happen while I was in Knoxville today?

NAM coming in warmer for eastern areas. Not sure if I'm happy about (since it does away with ice) or sad, since it could mean the east trend has ended.

Honestly I know so little about your microclimates there, I'm not sure. It looks like y'all are right on the Mississippi, and I know that being that close to a river can occasionally cause issues with surface temps here in the TN valley. That being said the 6z NAM and RGEM and obviously the 6z Euro put you just on the N. side of the mix/ freezing rain line, which should max out accums overhead. That's a stout warm nose on the NAM though and ant variation of that layer of above freezing air could change the precip quickly for you: the RGEM has a humongo DGZ, but still has a warm nose, though not enough to get freezing rain: Honestly, if I were making a forecast, I would do what they are doing there. Most of us on these boards want the max accumulation and to see big snowflakes. That's the bottom line for us. Professional forecasters though are more concerned with communicating hazards and impacts to individuals in their communities, so going with a Winter Storm Watch, and a mixed bag, given current model output is probably a good bet. Freezing rain and sleet can be more impactful for travel than snow, so erring on the side of "worst case scenario" (i.e. major ice storm, is probably the way to go. That way if it does turn out to be more snowfall, they can adjust and people are still aware. TBH even a glaze of ice on roads is worse than 6 - 8" of snow, IMO, so the more people you can keep off the roads during the event, the better. Another consideration, is that you are on the N. fringe of the Jackson, MS NWS area. I know John has noticed that sometimes plateau fringe areas here don't seem to get as much attention, but in our case that could be a decision based on population and Greenville MS looks like a decently sized town. I just don't know how that works out usually down there. Sometimes you can see a glaring difference between forecast offices by looking at the NWS NDFD snow maps, but in this case, the area between Jackson and Memphis looks pretty smooth, no big jumps as you go from one NWS area to another: 6z NWS NMB (National Model Blend, which I think a NWS met mentioned on twitter still uses an old version of the Euro) looks similar: If it were me, and I were forecasting I'd say the following: 3-6 snow, additional ice and sleet. Bottom line, travel will become hazardous and life threatening for you and other people on the road, don't go out unless you have to and monitor the latest conditions.

6z Euro:

The Euro OP seems to be wanting to sharpen and dig the energy more, over the N Gulf. I tried to make a gif, but t is hard to get the time stamps synced because teh 6z/18z have different set of hours than the 0/12z runs. Here's an example though: More open, neutrally tilted wave: deeper, sharper, negatively tilted wave: the deeper that digs and the more negatively it can tilt, especially if it does it right along the MS river, the better for us all.

Just from the perspective of "how do numerical forecast model services depict precip" perspective, it is interesting to see the diff. between the RGEM on TT and the RGEM on pivotal Hour 63: Here's the RGEM sounding that Pivotal gives over my general area for that time:

6z GEFS:

0z EPS members. Some of them seem to have crept east a bit since 12z yesterday:

Overnight Euro OP for western areas. I know Jax already shared teh specifics, but notice the "Max" number on the image. How manyt times will you see that number at hour 120 over the SE (and not the Apps?)

Overnight Ukie takes the early week system's surface LP east of the Apps : Then the systems keep on coming.