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Looks like most of it will be snow showery, with occasional squalls. Forecast in two waves mainly Friday night and Sunday night, with an in between lighter chance Saturday night. The latter two may have timing shifts or even flip flop intensities. Such is modeling in fast cyclonic flow. Also any daytime hours over the weekend (when not in subsidence between waves) could pop snow showers. Looks light for Nashville, kind of the west side of these snow showers - yet still in the zone. I have doubts about Chattanooga mainly due to downslope. Might be cold enough nights, but still fighting drying wind off the Plateau - not a good flow for snow making over into southeast Tenn. Even when snow makes it up and over elsewhere - hello Knoxville. Also looks good MRX to TRI. Of course the Plateau will get magic! Could be productive in the Mountains too.

Deep -AO can't even help Tennessee. Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi yes. Spain definitely. Tennessee going like our football. I have not commented on the last two systems due to work and online school crazy. However I root for y'all in the zones. News is much brighter in basketball land! Vols and Jayhawks have both bounced back with 1-2 wins including Saturday. Tennessee is so energetic both sides of the ball. We meet in a couple weeks!

Track issues aside, I'm encouraged to see Chattanooga thickness 540 or below when or shortly after precipitation starts with both systems. In January (vs March BL questions) 540 ought to be cold enough. That's only good news farther north and west along I-40 (BNA, MEM?) and especially northeast. It's tricky in Huntsville. What's new for HSV and CHA? Appears that cold air tries to get in place before both systems. Big upper ridge in eastern Canada helps deliver the surface highs. Then there are 50/50 lows; honestly, I hate that expression. 50/50 is worthless in a mild stormy pattern. However next week proper ridging is forecast in eastern Canada. Also for a wider swath of snow we need that Western US ridge to verify; and, not let any energy sneak through the Desert Southwest and Southern Rockies. Diving down the Plains and sliding across the Deep South is what we seek. Southern stream energy caused the Georgia tornadoes. Though the synoptic low went through the Midwest, southern stream energy and trough did Georgia. Now, do it with cold in place. Past performance blah blah blah. Main takeaway: I always like 540 thickness. The old fashioned method is sweet news to me - esp mid-winter.

Saturday I felt multiple disturbances in the College Basketball Force. Tennessee lost in Knoxville to Alabama. Vols let your hearts not be troubled. A January loss can promote excellence later in the season. Lack of home fans likely takes away some home court advantage. A much bigger debacle unfolded in Lawrence, Kan. Texas destroyed KU by 25 points! That's a bit more than a January home loss. I know they're both ranked; but, that's a stunning and colossal failure in Allen Field House. Cancelation of the tournament last season stings deeper today. Welp. There is good news when Tennessee hosts Kansas. At least we both can't lose that day, lol!

Middle Tennessee is ever so slightly more active than West Tenn. East Tennessee was historically less active than the other two; however, that may change (is changing) with recent trends and shifts. My conclusion on Mid vs West is based on historical tornado tracks, not really a map of the Alley. Those tracks have been floating around Twitter and other sites. North Alabama max bleeds north into Middle Tenn.

Yes I vaguely recall the 2010 system was there Day 5-6, got lost a little bit Day 3-4, then came back by Day 2. Not atypical. This year for KCHA was always a whiff from Day 10 in. At least the fcst was accurate, even if sad, lol!

Need to get rid of that bowling ball low sitting in the Gulf of Alaska. It's just killing cold air supply and surface temp forecasts. Temps are barely below zero on the North Slope and the Yukon. Mongolia took all the cold air, lol! Otherwise BN heights in the Southeast is good. At least the storm track is proper. HSV and CHA might be better served with a Miller B given the lack of cold air supply. If Miller A I'm sorry I'll just have to wish for severe in the Deep South.

On one hand that is so Soviet. Just shut out emotions to be content and warm. On the other hand we're all kind of the same. Who likes to be cold? Garth Brooks has the tie-breaker with, the Dance. Better to feel both than neither.

I'll leave Thursday to the SPC. I agree with them; and, it's way to far for me to even consider chasing. Overnight LA/MS is kind of a punt too. Friday forecast has shifted south and east. Looks like a cool wedge coming in from the Carolinas into North Georgia. At the same time, low level flow may hold up more than previous forecast out to the SC Coast and for southeast NC. Atlanta is on the north edge of Marginal, with very conditional instability. Best chance of instability is South Carolina below Columbia. That's way out of my range for a daytrip. Macon to Albany, Georgia is another possibility with some breaks in the trees. However construction on I-75 south of ATL makes it a hard pass. That construction is sooo annoying! New Year's looks like watching football and during commercial breaks, severe wx from my nice warm living room.

Dixie Holiday Special is coming up. I like the Day 3. System has really slowed down. It'll be a Louisiana and South Mississippi problem, perhaps overnight. Storms should get going in eastern Texas and enter southern Alabama by the end of the period. LLJ will increase with time Thursday night. Oh goodie for LA/MS. Friday Day 4 looks to refire or be ongoing in Georgia and the Carolinas. Could start in the southern Appalachians, before ramping up in the afternoon and lower elevations east. Piedmont gets involved. SPC rightly ends the action before the Low Country as upper dynamics will be ejecting away. However the LLJ hangs in through Friday afternoon. None of this is chase worthy imo. However it'll make nice armchair entertainment during commercial breaks of football games.

I'm starting to like the Martin Luther King Day period for a colder pattern. Well I'm wishing. Can't say I like it as a forecast yet. As Anthony notes North America has to hurry up and wait on the Strato warming and -AO. Right now Western Europe and China are cold due to blocking in the North Atlantic and also northeast of Scandinavia. Central Asia ridging helped promote that record surface high in Mongolia (Hoth, lol). Read a paper about the effects of SSW. Old news is that it can cause cold in eastern North America, Western Europe, and eastern Asia (one, two or three of the areas). However the North America failures are not new. Actually we have little correlation with the time of max Strato warming or -AO. Western Europe has the most correlation with blocking cold. East Asia is second, and lower. North America is barely significant at all. This is AO not NAO. Same study shows Alaska block has the higher correlation for North America. Not a surprise! We've been talking about that here. Though even I was a little intrigued just how poorly AO and even SSW correlate for North America - just not a big tool. The required Alaska ridge can happen 30 days following the North Pole true -AO. There is your North America lag. So North America lag might not be truly accurate. We need to wait for the AK ridge, whether by retrograde, Pacific forcing, or some other method.

I'm not sure about the Carolina side, but southeast Tennessee was somewhat locked in a couple days prior. That's pretty good for Southeast modeling. From 2-4 inches was forecast around here and verified Christmas morning - mostly during daylight hours. Points north and east got more, and like the Carolinas the forecast probably ebbed and flowed. I think I recall that deal. Chatty got blanked in 2020 while northeast Tennessee got the second white Christmas in 10 years. Probably be another 30 around here. From 1969 to 2010 was 41 years.

When the winter wx forecast goes to the dogs, there's only one question to ask. Though I acknowledge winter hope on Sunday in places.. When's the next chance of severe weather? Thursday night looks interesting, especially in the Deep South. The slower more amped, and perhaps cutting solutions, from the EC and NAM could get southeast Tennessee in play overnight. What a way to ring in the New Year! From the bathroom or closet? Regrettably it does not look like a chase scenario attm. First of all it's the shortest daylight of the year. Second, it looks to get going after dark. The just right 700 mb temp may check early junk; however, it also delays the main show. That'd be much more interesting in March or April. Third, it's relying on a developing LLJ a bit east of the best upper dynamics. Finally, the usual, it's Dixie Alley. All that said the wind fields are impressive. At first glance the 500-200 mb charts look a little meridional. However 850/925 is properly backed relative to those. 700 mb is just right temps for this time of year, and correct vectors. Surface temps/dews look to be there, again because 700 mb Ts hold off an early rain-out. The heavy rain advertised comes with the main system later. Bottom line: Chattanooga, North Alabama and North Georgia could ring in the New Year with overnight fireworks. Why not?

That went to the dogs in a hurry. 3 of the last 4 times I've posed bullish hope the last couple seasons it's gone mild within 36 hours. Jinx is real. Maybe after Martin Luther King Day. Hopefully then it's not maybe Feb. Then maybe Valentines Day. Then maybe next year. Some past set-ups where Greenland blocking was in conflict with Pacific mild going into early January, Europe and Asia got more cold dumps than North America. When North America starts out fairly mild it's tough. We'll see though. Time will tell.

Nice timing! Strato Warming has apparently ingested into the just released ECMWF weekly charts. I approve that message! Greenland block remains stout for 3-4 weeks. Some ridging West Coast. North Pac trough is more Bering sea than Alaska, a bullish shift for here. Surface Deep South is blue. Tennessee Valley and Mid South is variable. However these next four weeks are the core of January. We take! I'll be off for a few days. Merry Christmas!