John1122

August ENSO forecast updates are 65 percent Nina DJF from the human forecasters, 55 percent JFM. Model forecasts remain in favor of neutral ENSO throughout winter, though less strongly than they did last month. It will most likely be a weak Nina if it does come to pass. Only 2 of 26 models used in the forecast have moderate Nina conditions for winter. The Euro actually has a weak El Nino forecast.

The NWS only has Sevierville with .8 inches of snow for the whole month January 2010. At TYS they record 13 days with snow falling but it all only adds up to 3 inches for the month. 1 inch on the 7th, 2 inches on the 29th and 30th with a trace recorded on 10 other days. The accuracy of these reports are legendary in how inaccurate/unreliable they are, so take them with a grain of salt when your memory is in conflict with them. You're far more likely to be correct.

Had a storm that trained overhead for almost two hours this evening. Caused an hour lightning delay at the middle school football game I attended.

Made it less than 24 hours without more rain. Storm is clipping me, tons of thunder with this one.

Ended up with 6.15 inches of rain since Saturday and just over 8 inches in the last 6 days. Big storms are firing to the west of me in Fentress Co. Not sure if they make it this evening but they probably will by tomorrow if nothing else.

1959-60 is such an epic and unprecedented winter for the region it likely moves the needle by itself for the -NAO side. That said, raging +NAO winters here aren't kind unless the Pacific cooperates. Then they can be interesting. Dream scenario is the -NAO/+PNA combo. I'd love to see that map with a -PNA vs +PNA, and/or -EPO vs +EPO.

Noticed the small raindrops as I drove across town earlier. Last night a cell popped up overhead and just drenched down huge drops for about 30 minutes, it had thunder embedded. This rain is a whole lot of small drops. Either way, closing in on 5 inches in the last 72 hours and 7 inches over the last week.

I knew Chattanooga itself was freezing rain and sleet for a while at the airport. Sounds like you got more sleet than them. I bet it took 2 weeks for you to melt off with how cold it was after and how sleet works.

The track has shifted East so the rainfall totals are shifting East too. I can probably live without it. I've had 5 inches of rain this week and it's rained off and on most of today.

2 inches of rain and still coming down pretty well. Flood Advisory here until 2:30.

This thunderstorm rolling across is going to put down 1.5+ inches and probably did from Knox northward. So those totals may actually verify higher.

What a storm! I was stuck in the dang thing from Knox all the way home. It's still pouring here with an incredible display of cloud to ground lightning. I was 40mph on the interstate and there was street flooding through LaFollette.

+PDO is a cold signal for us but also a BN precip signal. But as Jeff often points out, some of our best snow events happen when we're in BN precjp patterns. If we're in AN precip patterns in winter it is normally because we are seeing lots of cutters.

Last time I was at the Obed/Clear Creek confluence I was feeling good. By the time I got back to Lily Bridge I felt like I was 80 years old!

No idea if it means anything for us, but the southern hemisphere is having a brutal winter. Antarctica has been below -80c. The coldest temp ever recorded on Earth is -89c. Places in Brazil that haven't seen snow in 60 years or more are seeing snow. Other places in South America have seen record cold and snow too. Australia and New Zealand are also seeing snowfall at unusual elevations along with well below normal temperatures. Canberra, which rarely ever sees flakes outside the Australian Alps 3 hours away, had a stretch with snow 4 of 5 days. It's been an all winter thing too. Antarctica started getting below -100f in June and soon began firing monster cold blasts northward. Oceana and South America started seeing brutal winter conditions in July and they're still occurring into August. The Austrian Alps in the northern hemisphere are also seeing very early first snowfalls with record lows in Europe. I was watching an Australian met and he suggested the low solar minimum and weak maximum that mirrors the little ice age are very likely contributing to the colder than average weather.

Skipped raining yesterday but it was back around 1pm today. Looks like more chances for the next week.

One brief heavy shower passed by and the thunder is frequent to the south of me. It's so humid that elevation driven showers hit every day now.

More heavy rain and thunder underway today. Just had one roll through and another is west of me and will be here in about 45 minutes if it manages to stay together.

I knew I had this somewhere. It's from the early February 1996 storm. The article inside mentions 14-16 inches being wide spread across the area. None of the airport stations in East Tennessee have anything close to that officially recorded. I think Tys has 8 inches, Tri has missing data and Chattanooga has maybe 3 inches recorded but they mixed for a long time. The storm was so impactful that this special to the paper came out 9 days after the storm, school was out in Knox County from February 2nd until February 12th after this. I'm not even sure if it made the list of high impact winter storms MRX put out a year or two ago.

Another big storm is right on the door step. Lots of thunder. Hopefully it holds together and drops more rain on my tomatoes.

Wasn't really expecting rain today but had a nice 45 minute moderate to heavy shower roll over. No thunder at all though.

Had a huge amount of thunder and cloud to ground lighting today but barely any rain to show for it. That's the most thunder and lighting I've ever had that close with so little rain.

Looking at some of those March conditions, that's why to me it never felt like March was the end of winter when I was younger. Nice snowfalls and cold weather were common in March. My normal snowfall in March was around 4-5 inches at one point. The last 20 year average is quite a bit lower in March than the prior 20 year period.

IMBY comparison for flip a few flip years from + to -. I will try and look at more later today. Cold season 1979-80 November +2, late month cold with 1 inch of snowfall Nov 30th. December -3, cold early with snow showers two days after the Nov 30th snow, warmed mid month, cooled back down and snowed 2 inches on Christmas day into the 26th. January +2, snowed 4 inches over the first 6 days of the month, then a warm up, snowed the last 3 days of the month, with 7 inches on the 31st. 11 total for the month despite AN temps. February -9, February was frigid, and snowy. Highs in the low 20s and lows below 0 the first 3 days of the month. 11 days with lows 6 degrees or colder. Snow fell 1st, 2nd, 1/2 inch total. Major snow hit the 6th-10th, 6 inches on the 6th, 2 inches on the 7th, 1/2 inch on the 8th, 1.5 on the 9th, 1 on the 10th. Warmed up a bit but snow stayed on the ground for 23 consecutive days ending February 20th, 2 more inches fell on the 25th/26th. 13.5 inches total. March -5, most legendary non-1960, 1993 March ever here that I know of, it snowed 6 inches on March 1st-2nd, March 3rd had a low of -10, the coldest March low ever here. March 4th -3 after a high of 20 on March 4th. TYS even got 3 inches of snow and got down to 1 on the 3rd. There were 5 days in March with lows in the 10s or colder. April -1.5 with two days of snow that covered the ground mid-month. 35 inches of snow total on the season. Flipped back to + from April 80-Jul 81. 1981-82 cold season November -.5, 1/4th inch of snow Nov 21st. December -4.5, very snowy December. snow fell on the 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th, amounting to 3/4th inch, 3.5 inches fell 16-18th as it snowed around or slightly more than an inch each day. highs in the 20s and lows of 3,4 the followed that. Set the stage for 7 inches of snow Dec 22nd. an inch of snow fell on Dec 25th. 12.5 for the month. January -5, I was just asking everyone about their memories of this winter the other day. It was frigid with two days of -14 lows. It snowed 9 out of 10 days at one point here with the big event being 7 inches the 13th-14th, 11 total fell in the stretch. It was capped off on Jan 18th with a monster ice event that is an East Tennessee legend. (oddly even though it's extremely memorable and you can easily find the Knox News Sentinel reporting 1 inch of ice in downtown Knoxville, NWS records only show .11 precip falling in Knox that day with a high of 29 degrees. My grandfather recorded 1 inch of ice that day, the Oneida station 20 miles west of me record 1.05 inches of precip. There's virtually no way that's an accurate record for TYS with only .11 precip. I also question the snowfall data from airport sites recorded for the month as they vary pretty far from non-airport stations. Granted MBY was getting lots of upslope for a week +, so maybe that's the difference. February +1, February was a big thaw month but we still had two two inch snows. March +2, but don't be fooled, it was another March snow bonanza, 7 inches on March 7th and 8th. It also turned cold late month, two days in the teens for lows at the end with snow fall both days. April -4, crazy April, it snowed the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. 3 inches fell on the 8th/9th. After 10 months + it flipped back to - August 1983 1983-84 cold season. November -0.5, 3 snowy days the 12th-14th produced dustings. Otherwise pretty average month temp wise. December -5, one of the most frustrating months of winter ever in the area. It was icy cold but bone dry when it was cold. We'd warm up, rain, then hit the icebox. Christmas Eve-December 27th was particularly frigid. As usual for the month it warmed up on the 22nd and 23rd, .70 rain fell, then the bottom dropped out, it fell into the 10s late evening on the 23rd, and it just stayed icy cold with snow showers the next few days. It was only 5 on Christmas eve afternoon after the temp fell all day, it only got up to 8 on Christmas day with light snow falling that evening. It was -10 on Christmas morning and -7 the day after and down to 0 on the 27th. That was with only around 1 inch of snow on the ground. That airmass would have ran at -15 to -20 with deep snow cover, maybe even colder. After a brief warm up to 40s and 20s, the last two days of the month were highs in the 20th and lows around 0 after it had of course eked above freezing for some more rain on the 28th. January -6, January continued the cold/warm/cold pattern of December but it didn't skimp on the snow. A monster cold front swept through with rain to snow on January 11th and we got 5 inches. 8 more inches fell the 17th-19th. From the 20th-23rd it was upper 10s for highs and well below 0 for lows, with 3 of them -10. The last week of the month was a January thaw. February -1, February ended up being close to normal temp wise but it had major swings to get there rather than uniform temps. It had a major snow event of 7 inches on the 6th with a -8 degree reading on the 7th and -3 on the 8th. It stayed warm until leap day when the high was 28 and it snowed 4.5 inches. March -4, March started cold after the big leap day snow here. It was -5 March 1st. There was snow showers the 2nd, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th, rain changed to snow on the 21st late with 2 inches falling on the 22nd. It also came snow showers late on the 29th into the 30th with another rain ending as snow showers event. April -1, slightly BN but no real winter events to speak of in April. 16 positive months from 1985-86 before a switch in July 1985-86 cold season November +8, November 1985 was torch city. December -8, December was as cold as November was warm but it was bone dry. It was well BN the 3rd-8th, 1 inch of snow fell on the 14th after a mega front passed with temps falling into the lower 20s after night time highs near 50. The next couple of days were icy cold with lows near 10 and highs in the 20s and 30s. It snowed 2 inches on the 20th, it warmed up around Christmas eve but a big Christmas cold front dropped temps from the upper 30s into the 10s and we had snow showers behind the front with 1.5 inches on Christmas. The snow showers continued the day after Christmas and the high was only 12 with a low of 3, we got 1/2 inch from them. It got cold again around the end of the month with single digit lows. It was amazing that there was snow on the ground, the highs were only in the lower 10s but it couldn't quite get below 0. January -4, it was cold again in January but it was also dry. It was so dry that mid-month we had a crazy streak of days where the highs were in the upper 40s and low 50s but the lows were in the 10s each morning. The month ended on a cold streak with 7 inches of snow from the 26th-28th timeframe with most of it falling on the 27th into the 28th. There was a -8 degree low in there. Under 2 inches of precip for the month February +3, another warm February but we cashed in during one of the cold snaps. It got cold on the 10th and stayed that way until the 15th, several days of low 20s for highs and low single digits for lows set the stage for a storm, 9 inches of snow fell on the 15th, it warmed into the 50s the next day and rain 3 straight days. March -2, March started out cold but it was like January, it was dry. There was only around 1.8 inches of total precip for the month. April +2, generally warm to hot with a couple of cold snaps that caused the +2 to be a little deceptive.

Looks like the La Nina forecast is now down to 35 percent with a 50 percent chance of La Nada. See my previous post for the Valley region during neutral winters. As a rule it should mean a slightly more suppressed SE Ridge with the AN temps around 125 miles further East than a weak La Nina.