John1122

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.

Extremely heavy rain again overnight. Feels much better out there this evening.

I expect some 70s for highs from that one here.

It was a loud and rowdy storm here. Probably the most thunder and lightning I've had in 2021. One strike nearby caused the power to go out briefly. Lots of window rattlers and some pretty heavy rain from it.

Frequent thunder here with some drenching rain on the door step. I love these storm clusters that roll in like this in summer.

The best thing about living where I do in summer. It's really really tough to crack 90 here. It's actually 5:09 when I took that. I forgot to spring it forward.

Wading, rock crawling and swimming a few miles of that creek just wiped me out. By then time I drag myself out I'm tired of everything!

I loved small mouth fishing in Clear Creek. I always found it best going from Jett towards Barnett. I'd just get a fishing vest/life jacket combo and swim the deepest holes. It was common to catch 50+ fish a day there in summer when I was going. Jett to Lily was good too, Barnett end wasn't as productive and Lily to the river didn't work out that well for me either. Always had to monitor the weather closely when wading/swimming in the canyon. Thunderstorms would cause the creek to become an out of control whitewater beast in a short period of time.

That stinks. Areas that didn't get soaked today better hope they get something tomorrow. Its gonna be even hotter in areas where the ground is dry going into mid and late week.

I was close, 1.44 inches out of that one.

Ended up with some very vivid cloud to ground lightning and just drenching rain. Not checked yet but probably 1.5 to 2 inches of rain just judging by the amount of water out there standing and running down the road.

Extremely heavy rain here with some thunder embedded. It's coming down at 2-3 inch per hour rates right now.

I have some pretty high chances of rain Sunday and Monday. After that we may heat up quite a lot it looks like.

Looking back at January 1982, which was one of my favorite winter months here. Wondering what each of your memories are of it if you remember it at all. The local airport weather reporting stations don't jibe with what happened imby but what happened here is mirrored in the two closest stations operating close to me at the time, one a few miles west of me in Campbell Co and the other about 20 miles north of me in Williamsburg Ky.

This follow up Nina, if it come to pass, looks like it will be a weak one with the ensemble forecast hovering around -.5 to -.6 in the winter months. Last year was a moderate Nina and there's never been a moderate or strong Nina that followed a moderate Nina. Only one moderate ever produced a follow up at all. So we may yet land in neutral territory as 80 percent of moderate events produce a La Nada the following season. With weak being the most likely scenario if we get the Nina, the follow up weak years temps were BN across the entire SE including the Tennessee Valley in the Sept-Nov timeframe. The west coast was particularly cool for those falls as well. So it might be a big pattern shift for them as we hit fall. When you factor in every follow up Nina year the Southeast still had BN temperatures in fall. There was a stark difference out west though, it was quite warm for most areas west of the Mississippi, especially the upper Midwest to the Pac NW. Which would strongly indicate the stronger the Nina the warmer the West in Autumn. The winter seasons for the weak Nina follow up years have a similar pattern to what has already been discussed here. Very cold upper midwest, slightly AN southeast with the Plateau being the approximate dividing line between normal temps and AN temps. We really saw that play out last year in the Nina. The February 10th-20th period saw several days with a massive difference from Tri-Cities to the Plateau and points westward with the classic SE ridge battle vs super cold air sliding down from the Upper Midwest. There were 20 degree differences in temperatures across each of the Grand Divisions with Tri in the mid 50s, the Plateau in the lower 30s, upper 10s in Clarksville/Nashville and lower 10s in NW Tn/NE Arkansas. The two anomalies in the follow up weak Ninas are torchy 2018 and 1985 with it's legendary winter. Oddly if you remove them there's almost no change to the map for most of the region. Take away 2018 and northern Arkansas and NW Tennessee are slightly BN instead of near normal with nothing much changing for anywhere else. Take away 1985 and the only area that warms much is a small corridor from Chattanooga, to Knoxville to Tri-Cities with everyone else remaining roughly the same as far as departure from normal. If we do indeed avoid the Nina and go La Nada, things looks slightly better for the valley. The AN area slips over the Smokies and lines up from Cherokee to Boone and points East. The Upper Midwest remains frigid those years, which is where we get our cold from 90 percent of the time. As long as Eastern Montana to Wisconsin gets really cold we have a chance of getting a good cold outbreak, especially the central and western Tennessee valley regions. All the Nina talk is just one factor of many though. We sometimes see the atmosphere defy ENSO and act in opposite fashion to what ENSO would normally suggest.

My rain streak ends at 13 days.

Had another round of moderate rain this evening. I feel Jeff on the frequent rains. You can see the huge disparity from the NE parts of the state vs the rest on that map Knoxtron posted.