John1122

0z NAM suite is showing snow more in Kentucky but if you look at the soundings the 850s are well below freezing and the precip type on the soundings say snow even in places like Union/Grainger Co where the model is showing rain. Which I believe it is showing because surface temps are mid 30s. So any decent rates will likely fall as snow instead of rain if the NAM is to be believed. 

The trends of the last 24 hours have all gotten better with that potential system Tuesday with that 3k NAM topping the stack with 2-4 inchs all the way from just East of Clarksville to SW VA. The GFS is confined more to the east but it's snow shield has expanded westward as well.  The RAP/RGEM have SE Kentucky in the bullseye. Hopefully todays trends that have put more of us in the potential game continue into future runs.

31 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Just for fun and not for verification purposes, take a look at the 0z GFS at 312.  Look at the 500 anomaly, and then look a the surface weather under it.  Pretty incredible.   

That means the cold is shallow under the ridge. Sure enough you, if you look at the skew-t at 312 the surface is approximately the same temperature as the 500mb level of the column.  Look at 120 by comparison,  500mb is 20+ Celsius colder than the surface.  Usually higher heights means warmer but sometimes with the shallow, dense cold slips under the higher heights and gives cold surface temps. I just really hope it's right but the vortex in the Pac NW remains ugly. 

Heavy snow here now. Quarter sized wet flakes. Vis 1/2 mile or less. Classic convection based snow shower. 

Had snow/graupel shower. Temp is 36 degrees and falling pretty fast. Was 52 a few hours ago.

00z GFS has no Scandinavian ridge.  Transient cold shots, mostly potential record highs. Hopefully we can get out of the ditch in the next two weeks.  If not, it's probably time to completely re-evaluate winter in this part of the world and assume we now have the climate of Central Gulf coast states 20 years ago.  Doesn't mean we can get cold or snow any more, just means it will not be a given that we will get snow in winter. 

2.38 inches and pouring down out there right now with some heavy upstream returns coming.  Some flooding issues cropping up in the area and creeks are very high.  

That was one of the worst/warmest runs I've seen of any model.  Keep in mind the GFS has a cold bias and has been verifying about 6 or 7 degrees too cool, even still no one in the forum gets below freezing from Jan 10th-19th. We may have wide spread mid-winter 70s though. 

00z GFS. 

Now at 1.28 after moderate/heavy rain for the past few hours. 

.55 has fallen here so far. I can't imagine we manage a 3rd straight year of much much AN precip. 

8 minutes ago, AMZ8990 said:

Off topic John- but do you remember the last time we had a good February snowstorm in the sub forum?

The last time that basically the entire sub forum had winter weather was February 2015. On February 16th-18th almost the entire forum had at least an inch of snow and mixed precip too. It was also close on February 25th the same year.  

Large snow events for the entire sub forum are rare.   You almost never see snow in both Chattanooga and Dyersburg because the events that drive snow for both places are usually different.  

1 minute ago, TellicoWx said:

Agree completely, basically need the mjo to cycle around into phase 7/8 (promotes +PNA/-NAO) or take our chances in the COD (rely on other drivers to pop a +PNA)...where the MJO currently is headed (high amp 4/5), above normal temps and precip until we get thru it.

Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
 

Last year we went from 7-2 during the warmth and the Pacific didn't even blink.  Last year was the queen mother of bad winters. 

Just now, weathertree4u said:

Oh

Our best hope is that this is a 6 week type pattern. If it is we will see it start breaking down in about 2 weeks.  Which would be great for us because January 15th - February 15th is the prime winter timeframe here when temps are at their lowest and snowfall is at it's most likely.  But last year we never got out of a similar 500mb pattern, even though other drivers are different this year, we may not get out of this one.  If this one doesn't change even the Smokies would struggle to see even close to normal snow during it. Right now it's probably a coin flip on whether we get a shift. Most other times I'd say we would, but in the current ecosystem we tend to fall into every way possible to stay warm and wet.  

8 hours ago, weathertree4u said:

So that is good right? 

It is the opposite of good. You want a +PNA that's rising.  We can't have any kind of sustained cold or winter weather with a bad Pacific. At most we can get a lucky shot but even that's uncommon.  I haven't looked but I'd bet 85+ percent of our cold/snow events feature either s positive or neutral PNA. 

Euro holds onto a chance of snow showers around sunday. Probably 1 inch or less most places. After that similar up and down right to the GFS through day 10. 

9 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

See, that is what is so frustrating with the ensembles.  They just stop the entire hemispheric pattern around Jan 10th.  The preceding pattern has not been one that is nearly stationary for the entire Western Hemisphere.   I think the key is to get that western displaced easter Pac ridge...budged eastward to where its influence is such that cold is at least forced down the front range.  I can just about tell if the pattern is going to be seasonal or a torch based on those little vortices spinning south out of Alaska.  If there is room between the eastern Pac ridge and the coast, they go there and build a monster ridge here.  If they get pushed across the mountains, trough here.  Sounds crazy after watching a locked pattern for several weeks, but the pushing back of the eastern ridge in time is probably depending on something as razor sharp as that.

If we could get that EPO ridging 600 miles east and get it to orient S to N and get roided up like it does, we would be having below 0 weather. 

It looks like a pattern that's extremely changeable, no sustained torch or cold through mid month. It will be AN but because the AN days will be very much AN. 

It was going well and the orientation of the high tilts and a trough sprouts under it in the Pac NW. That piece of the PV is dropping towards a good spot though. 

It looks like it's working towards a -AO with over the top blocking and it's pushing the vortex south into Canada. 

If you look at the 500mb 48hr forecast trend maps on the GEFS they show lowering heights over the middle of the country to our area and rising heights generally along the west coast. So while there still may be 500mb anomalies in the places that we don't want them, the trend is for them to be less extreme on subsequent runs as they come closer to reality. 

I will end the year with 81.37 inches of rain, breaking the record set last year, with around 90 years of observations within a 4 mile area here. 

The GEFS mean through 240 is around .75-1 inch in Jonesboro/Tupelo/Memphis/Chattanooga/Huntsville.  2 inches in Nashville/Clarksville/Cookeville/Knoxvile. 3 inches Crossville/Bristol/Tazewell. 4+ in SWVA. As noted by the individual members it's not a case of 5 monster storms and a bunch of blanks, it's more a lot of members showing around 1-4 inches that gives the mean. That mean almost doubles through 384 along areas north of 40 and especially border areas in Kentucky/VA/Northern Tn. So we might have the warmth to deal with now and will probably see it come back strong a few times in the next few weeks, but we should get the cold and we could have some chances to see white ground over that time frame. 

The Euro cold shot towards the end of it's run is the kind that would likely result in snow showers hanging around all day as temps struggle to get out of the mid 20s.

GEFS still saying we should see something in the next 6-10 days with every member having at least something somewhere in the Valley region.

The Euro has two shots of cold and a clipper that puts some snow in the air for a lot of us and snow on the ground for some of us.  It's downright frigid at the end of its run.