John1122

44 this morning, currently at 59 degrees. Supposed to be even cooler tomorrow, mid 50s maybe for highs. We may not get the classic lower 70s fall temp period, just from hot to late fall weather.

It would be very nice to get that cooler November. Even 1 degree below normal seems to make a pretty big difference in how winter plays out. It's not a guaranteed analog, nothing ever is in long range weather and we could freeze in November and still torch, but that cooler set up going into winter helps more often than it hurts. I assume it gives our source cold region more snowpack building time. We need a good snowpack over Southern Canada, the Dakotas and Minnesota as early as possible. Some of our extreme warmth winters had those areas snow free until well into December.

The first GFS fantasy flakes of the year! 99 percent chance this doesn't happen, but late October and flakes aren't terribly uncommon here. October 1995 had several snow showery days here, October 1993 saw 3 inches on Halloween. Both those led into good winters. The hurricane driven mountain monster snow didn't seem to translate to anything but a bleh winter a few years ago.

GFS at 12z is all in for a freeze most areas North of 40 between day 8-10. The Euro from last night was suggest mid to upper 30s in those areas. The Canadian is about 15-20 degrees warmer in the same time frame than the GFS and is the warmest of the three. The experimental FV3 GFS is closer to the Euro. Either way, we're going to abruptly go from mid summer temperatures to mid fall temperatures. Highs will probably not get out of the 60s in some areas this weekend. Higher elevations will see 40s and 50s for highs. Crazy year, 90s to 60s without much middle ground and a few days apart.

Looking more and more like we're about 8-10 days from the beginning of true fall temps. Probably have frost on the pumpkins by October 15th-20th for a good portion of the region.

Just wanted to say I hope the health issues are behind you @jaxjagman I appreciate all you bring to the board. Not just your weather but updates about your son and your sports perspective. You're the only Jags fan I know!

I'm still waiting to see a sign that things are getting better. Not really seeing it yet as we've been completely dominated by teams with a pulse. Georgia sleep walked and still rolled us. The same penalty repeating during punts is troubling. Look at Florida's turnaround and consider we've had better recruiting classes than them the last 4 years. 20 of Tennessee's 22 starters are 4 and 5 star recruits that were recruited by every top school in the nation.

It wasn't blazing hot, it was just very warm both day and night. I've seen upper 90s in September but the unending upper 80s/mid 60s are what pushed it over the top. September is usually when we see the first cold fronts, no humidity days, crisp blue skies and temps in the 40s a few nights, and the 50s most nights. That just didn't happen. We had the rain that kept the high temps down but lows were still 8-10 degrees above normal.

When I say Western Valley and Eastern Valley on here I'm basically referring to Bowling Green to Huntsville approximately as the center line. East of there and it's Eastern Valley, West of there is Western Valley. The North vs South dividing line is I-40 from Nashville to Knoxville but since 40 turns so sharply SW west of Nashville I'd just draw the line due west from Davidson County into Arkansas to refer to north or south. Localized names in the Eastern region are Northern Mountains/Southern Mountains, Northern Valley, Central Valley and Southern Valley, Northern and Southern Plateau. These refer to the mountains from Sevier NE, Blount to the GA border, Morristown to Tri to Gate City Va, Morristown to Loudon County is the Central Valley. Southern Valley Athens to Chattanooga NE Alabama. Northern Plateau is Cumberland to Claiborne County and points N or West of that line. Then Southern Plateau are Plateau areas from south of Cumberland to NE Alabama. In the Nashville area you have the Eastern Highland Rim, the Northern Rim, the Western and Southern rim. You have the greater Nashville Central Basin area. Our Nashville area posters can much better break down all the microclimates of their area. They don't have as many as Eastern areas because Eastern areas range from 500ft in elevation to 6600 feet in elevation over a short space. But there is a huge difference in winter weather there when you are North of 40 vs South of 40. The highland rim also adds to the winter weather in that area. Clarksville is one of the colder lower elevation spots in the state and they usually do well winter weather wise when it can be rainy and even mild in the Eastern valley. West Tennessee is more uniform in elevation and it's very much lower elevations. Memphis struggles to get any winter weather at all as does Northern Mississippi. Once you rise several counties above Memphis and start getting into NWTN/SW Kentucky in the far NW edge of the valley, you will experience much colder and more wintry precip than the southwestern valley. That is pretty much how I see things. The western valley and eastern valley see very different engines at times that drive winter events. The Eastern areas get buried at times with coastal snow events, like the Blizzard of 1993. The Western areas get severe winter weather while it rains in the East such as the Great Nashville Blizzard of 1951. Once in a while we get good southern sliders and the whole region gets painted with snow although far NW valley areas tend to do the worst with those. Those are my favorites.

I agree, last year the Pacific was too much a monster, still the storm track got shoved south and the deep south had a snow bonanza. That will occasionally happen but more frequently we'd have been under the gun for winter precip across the entire valley. I really hope we can get the pattern to swing in our favor by November, that doesn't guarantee a great winter here but it ups the odds somewhat. I also prefer crisp fall days, like I'm sure we all do. It's tough to sweat it out all summer and have it never let up the first month of fall.

We can do well without the -NAO across the whole valley, especially those from the Plateau and westward. The +NAO a few years ago was completely overwhelmed by a favorable Pacific. It was a jackpot winter for those along and north of I-40. Areas in NW Tennessee, North of Nashville, Knoxville North, all the way to the Tri-Cities and points north were generally hit with lots of wintry weather, ice and snow. Do not want the warm November as I posted about in the winter weather thread. Not a winter killer but it's a hard punch in the first round. Pretty much to me I want the EPO to be favorable, then the PNA, and NAO/AO. We have a very very very hard time overcoming an unfavorable Pacific. The NAO can make for the huge storms, especially the ones that effect the far eastern 1/3rd of the Valley region and the Carolinas.

I believe it was the warmest September on record at Crossville. The first September in almost 100 years that didn't get below 60 at Knoxville. The warm/muggy low temperatures are what drove the records. I haven't been in the 40s yet, which is very rare for September, I've only been down to 54.

That wild 500mb map after warm Septembers leads to much less cold the following winter than one would think. Not much difference in DJF after warm Septembers for our region either. So all in all, a warmer or colder than average September at Tri doesn't seem to sway winter temps much in either direction come winter. I'd actually probably favor the temperature set up after a warm Sept. Our source cold is the upper Midwest, North Dakota to Minnesota and adjacent Canada. That area is much colder vs average following the warmer Septembers.

With Carvers talk about this being such a warm September in the Tri Cities (currently +4 over the prior record), I figured I'd do for it what I did for warm Novembers there. These are the mean 500mb anomalies over North America following the 20 warmest Septembers vs the 20 coldest. The 20 coldest map is crazy. Warm Sept/ Cold Sept.

You are missing the point, I used the word never in the correct sense but for some reason you don't comprehend quite what I said. I said November warmth is never a good sign for winter weather. I'm really not sure what point you are possibly trying to make disputing that. Are you saying that a warm November is a good sign for DJF? Can you show me some actual scientific evidence that if you like winter weather in the area that it's good to have a warm November? I'd actually be encouraged if it exists. I pretty clearly broke down the reasons why November warmth is never a good sign for winter weather here. The 500mb pattern is on average, hostile to chances of winter weather in the DJF timeframe following them. This pattern pretty clearly plays out in the 7-3 split both ways in regards to the snowiest winters vs the most snow free winters in the area. It could be 5 degrees above normal here this November and then snow 2 feet this winter valley wide, but my post would still be true because that scenario happens way less often after a warm November than it does after a cold November. Thus a warm November is never a good sign for winter weather.

Actually, the 40 total winters in the past 70 years is a pretty big statistical pool and and the 500mb pattern in each set is glaring and it isn't swayed by one or two winters in the set. NOAA sets new climatological norms based on 30 years. If we have a warm November we might not lose, but we're down 10 going into the 4th quarter and the other team is playing good defense. That big -PNA that shows up after warm Novembers is the worst possible winter pattern here, we can make almost every other pattern work if we can get cooperation in that region, but if the PNA is deeply negative, we're going to have warm SW flow and cutters as a rule during those winters. It shows up in the final snow tallies as well, 7 of the 10 snowiest winters in the region came following years with BN Novembers. Including the legendary 1959-60 winter, 1984-85 and 1995-1996.. On the flip side, 7 of Knoxville's 10 least snowy winters came after above average Novembers.

The anomaly in the PAC NW during the warm November is pretty significant when averaged over a 20 different years. It's hard to move the bar that much from average over a long period of years. But those years appear to feature a rampaging -PNA which would lead to there being significant western troughs in those winters. There are a few great winters in there and there are a few clinkers in the cold Novembers but by far we want the cold November 500mb pattern vs the warm one.

There are exceptions, as there always are in any kind of analog. But the majority of warmer than 48 degree Novembers in Knoxville resulted in less than stellar to down right terrible winters. These are the two 500mb vs normal for DJF from the top 20 warmest Novembers since 1948 vs the top 20 coldest since 1948.

The NWS numbers are completely unreliable, especially snowfall numbers. This was the first I'd noticed that much temperature fudging. There's a station near here in Newcomb. It recorded snowfall, rainfall and temp data for most of the the last 60 years or so until I believe 2012. It held the state record for snowfall in 24 hours for the November 1952 storm with 22 inches, that stood until the Blizzard of 1993 and LeConte started having official recordings. According to NWS records that station averages 2.5 inches of snowfall per year from 1951-2012. The stations in Jamestown and Tazewell are slightly further south and close in elevation, Tazewell averages 16.4 inches and Jamestown 18.2 inches over the same time period. They also claim Oneida, also in the same latitude/elevation range, only averaged 7.5 for that period. So they "lose" data and apparently just slap a 0 on the snowfall total for the day and plow ahead and average it out.

November warmth is never a good sign for winter weather. If the mean temp in Knoxville for November is above 48 degrees, the winters are almost always lacking in snow/cold in this part of the valley at least. Not checked on the western valley but I imagine their results are similar. The new normal for Knox in the 1981-2010 climate cycle is 49 in November, thus a large number of very poor winter performances during that time. But when November has managed to come in below average, the winters have tended to be cold/snowy at some point. In 2014 the November mean temp averaged 41.6 at Knoxville (I recorded this number in the 2014 thread, and I went back and looked at the NWS official record and it's been changed to 43.2, no idea how it got almost 2 degrees warmer 4 years later.) and I talked about that in the winter pattern discussion. 2014-15 ended up being quite excellent for snow/cold. So pull for that to be wrong about November if you want the white stuff to pile up!

We are in fall and it's part of the weather that's happening in the future. So I don't have any issue personally with it being here. But maybe we need a short term thread and we can leave this the long term thread for beyond 5 days discussion?

The Euro shift a little south/west again. Now has the heaviest rain in the Chattanooga area. Rain shield goes west of Nashville. Euro still has most areas from the Plateau and eastward getting tropical storm force gusts, some up to around 50mph outside the mountains. Some 50-70mph gusts in the mountains with hurricane force gusts at the highest peaks. The rain lingers around from Sunday afternoon until finally clearing out on Wednesday on the Euro.

The 00z Euro brings the remnants a little further west and south than 12z. Rain shield stretches towards Nashville now, with 1.5-4 inches from Cookeville and points east. The mountains sap it quite a bit, 8-12 inches of rain on the eastern slopes of the Apps. 3-5 at the peak and falling as you move westward with the storm weakening. The Euro also brings some 35-50mph wind gusts across the area. There's a peak gust in the 90s over the mountains of western NC right along the border east of Erwin. The GFS was still wacky but this time took the remnants well back over the Eastern Valley areas and it ends up in a similar position as the Euro.

I don't think the GFS will pull the coup on this one, especially the cat 5 hanging around off the coast from Friday until Monday morning. That may technically be possible but it seems a very unlikely scenario. The 12z Euro features possible flooding rains for the far eastern mountains and a general soaking rain for the rest of us. The extreme NETN/SWVA rain event from the 00z Euro was pretty much cut in half on qpf totals. Still 4-6 inches of rain predicted in those areas, but much better than the 8-12 inches the 00z was showing.

I'm into full on show me mode. But I will say this, our schedule is pretty easy this year. We have more 4 and 5 star players on the roster than anyone in the East besides Georgia. Not sure why Florida is getting so much love, they were a trainwreck last year too. South Carolina benefited from everyone else in the East being awful besides Georgia. Won every close game basically. Kentucky is terrible, Vandy is worse, an average at best Missouri team hired Derrick Dooley to run it's offense. Alabama, Auburn and Georgia are the only three teams we play that clearly have more talent. If we beat every team we should beat and can go .500 against the teams we're closer to evenly matched with, we will get to a bowl game. Anything less this year and what little faith I have in Pruitt will be up in smoke.