John1122

The GFS is hilariously inconsistent in the LR regarding theA0/ NAO region. You couldn't have a bigger flip on the 18z to 00z runs.

I mentioned earlier that I was going to write a little about what I remember and some observations about the February 1996 monster winter storm and Arctic outbreak that capped off winter. The Blizzard of 96 gets more headlines, but this event was much more significant for most of our region. We all felt the frigid cold. Far western areas like Memphis to Dyersburg to NE Arkansas had the least precip, as there was a sharp cutoff between Memphis and Oxford. Batesville Northeast into the eastern 3/4ths of Tennessee, and Northern Alabama saw major league severe winter weather. Far southeast areas from Chattanooga east were warmed nosed and missed on the massive winter precip but still had moderate wintery precip and got extremely cold as well. The stage was set with fresh Arctic cold a few days before the storm. The storm formed on an Arctic front in South Texas. Areas far south such as Jackson and Monroe began seeing frozen precip on Thursday the first. It began spreading NE into the surface cold as Thursday progressed. 850 temps were around 50 while surface temps were in the 20s and low 30s across Northern Miss, North and NW Alabama and Southern Tennessee. Sleet and freezing rain fell over Memphis but extremely heavy freezing rain developed around Oxford and worked it's way into Middle Tennessee. Nashville saw sleet and ZR, as did Huntsville, Alabama. Temperatures that Thursday stayed in the 20s from just North of Chattanooga to the Tri Cities in East Tennessee. I was working in Jefferson County that day. I remember riding to work and the winter storm warnings started rolling in over the radio. By Thursday at around 5pm-7pm snow had over spread most of Middle and East Tennessee and Southern Kentucky except for far NE areas. Southern Middle was sleet and snow mixed. Mississippi was under a state of emergency with 1-2 inches of solid ice. Northern Alabama was getting there slowly with freezing rain that would soon mix with sleet. By 9pm Thursday heavy snow was falling from Nashville to Knoxville. This would continue over northern Miss. Northern Alabama, southern Middle and East Tennessee into SWVA for the next 12-18 hours. There was thundersnow and thunder sleet across the south. Temperatures fell rapidly with the slow and ice happening with surface temps in the upper 10s and low 20s. Fayetteville in Southern Middle had freezing rain to sleet to snow with a temp range of 26 falling to 19 during the event. At midnight Crossville had heavy snow and 19, Nashville snow and 20, Tri Cities heavy snow and 20, Knoxville heavy snow and 23. Chattanooga had been stuck at 33 with rain but they transitioned to ice then sleet and finally to snow. With 3 inches of snowfall on top of ice during the event. Extremely heavy snow developed in small area of Roane, Northern Knox, southern Anderson, Union and Jefferson County. This boosted their totals to all time type snowfall records. At the end of the precip Northern Mississippi saw 3 inches of solid ice/snow. Northern Alabama had similar totals with slightly less ice and a bit more snow. Southern Middle Tennessee had 1 inch of ice and 4-5 inches of snow. Nashville had 5 inches of snow on top of ice. Cookeville had 6 inches of snow on top of ice. The western Plateau areas saw 11-14 inches of snow. Southern Kentucky saw 7-10 inches. The Eastern Plateau areas such as Oneida, Lafollette and Cumberland Gap saw 14-17 inches of snow. The Northeastern Valley from Morristown NE into SWVA saw 13-17 inches of snow. The areas from Rockwood to Halls to Maynardville where the enhanced thundersnow went on picked up 18-22 inches of snow. For whatever reason, Tyson only recorded 8 inches from the event. Specific snowfall reports I witnessed or have found from various NWS sites. Nashville 5 inches. Cookeville 6 inches. Huntsville, Ala 3 inches - lots of ice. Batesville Miss 3.2 inches + ice. Chattanooga 3 inches + ice. Knoxville Tys 8 inches. Rockwood reported 8.5 inches on .82 precip, data missing for the next day with 1.09 precip falling. Likely 20 inches in Rockwood. Lenoir City 9 inches. LaFollette 17 inches (observed this myself) Norris 18 inches. (Observed this myself.) Maynardville 21 inches. (co-worker lived there.) Halls 19 inches. (Maynardville co-worker observed) Crossville 13 inches. Jamestown 13 inches. Fayetteville 4 inches - lots of ice. Tazewell, Tn 15 inches. Greenville, Tn 11 inches. Bristol, Tn 13 inches. Kingsport 14 inches. Abington, Va 16 inches. Middlesboro, Ky 10 inches. Corbin, Ky 9 inches. Knoxville Exp Station 2.08, all frozen, missing data. Likely 18+ inches of snow. So generally most of the area saw frozen, a good bit of it had double digit snowfall totals that rivaled the Bizzard of 1993. The cold that followed was record setting for February. The air mass produced Minnesota's all time record low of -60. Temperatures here were widespread below 0. The very few areas that stayed above zero in far southern areas had lows in 1-3 range. Most areas with snowpack were at least -10 with quite a few -20 or colder readings. It was -20 imby, -20 in Spara, -22 in Tazewell, -23 at the Greenville experimental station. It was -16 in Crossville, Norris and Kingsport and -10 to -15 from Murfreesboro to Northern Knoxville to Morristown. High temps were in the upper single digits across Northern areas from Tazewell west to Dyersburg. Only around 10-12 in many others. As far south as Huntsville the high temp was only 13 in the wake of the storm. Mt LeConte didn't have notably different temperatures than the rest of the area, it was actually slightly warmer February 5th than other areas. -17 was as cold as it got. After looking back on it, this may be the most impressive winter event of my lifetime. Virtually as cold as 1985 with snowfall amounts rivaling the blizzard of 1993, plus a massive ice event for west and SW valley areas.

January 1994 was a potent Siberian Express situation, with 2 fronts. The 2nd was one of those 20 degree drops in two hours and it was already cold from the first front. Most areas went ice to snow then got extremely cold behind the 2nd front. I spent around 9 days below freezing in the heart of January. The first front for Nashville was a trace of snow, the temps were 41-39 in advance of the front. It was 39 at midnight January 14th. The temp fell all day and the low was 13 there. The high the next day was 17 with a low of 5. 36-4 the next day. The second front was coming through the next day. The high was 35 early, the front roared through the state and Nashville had fallen from 35 to 7 by midnight. It snowed 2.2 inches on top of some freezing rain and sleet there during the frontal passage. The next day Nashville was 10-0, the following day 17- negative 1. 26-11 and 29-13 the following day. It was one of the big 5 winter events for the Valley in the 1990s imo just because of the power and duration of the cold. I was going to post about another in the historical thread. The blizzard is legendary for the Eastern half of the region but this event for Valley as a whole beats it in my opinion. It's the massive ice and snow storm of February 1st-3rd 1996.

I would guess we will be in a base warm pattern with occasional brief cool shots at least through December 15th-25th. Possibly longer. The 6 week pattern sometimes happens, which would put us in this pattern until January 10th or so. Last year we never got out of the ditch all winter. In 2015 after the very cold November of 2014, we got out in January I believe. It was mostly warm through December, 2014 mid 60s Christmas Eve. Mid 60s again January 6th before the bottom fell out for a week or so, then January battled it out flopping around before we had the brutal February into early March with multiple snow and ice storms and well below 0 cold. You just get gun shy with these last three winters when everything that could go wrong for winter did.

The GEFS and GFS are not in agreement at all really. OP is a nationwide torch and the Ens are BN East.

I am not opposed to a relaxation in the pattern in December, as long as it doesn't last until March like it did last year.

Through this same time last year, which was a cold November in and of itself, we are much cooler so far this November.

This was their November forecast. This is the reality for the first 20 days of the month,

Its chilly with showers here too.

Pretty chilly next 16 days on the GFS. Probably 3 AN days and 13 BN days on the 18z run. Always worry we will kick into a long thaw but when I look back over the years the odds are better that the cold is reoccurring than they are that it goes away. Getting burned last year has me wary. But 2014 worked out later in winter.

It's in 8 now and looks like it will go low amplitude into 1 and possibly back into 8.

I often wonder how these are calculated. There's a station a few miles west from me but at 700ish feet lower in elevation. That station is 28/14 for the 13th, meaning the front had passed before midnight there. It is -26.3 for the 13th. Tri is -18.6 but only because they were briefly that warm around midnight. Honestly the 28 was brief in this area. The balance of the day was spent in the low to mid 20s here. I guess it balances out with times where it may be cold for a short time during a day but quickly warns for hours but the average can be misleading as to how cold or warm the day actually was.

6-10 and 8-14 are BN per the CPC and GEFS. That should put 2019 high in the BN November rankings, maybe the coldest for some of us. Last year was cold as well for November, but not quite as cold as this year. That led to a cold start to December and a significant snowfall East of 75. Right now November 1976 is the only one colder in my area after the last few days of BN. Same with Crossville. 1976 had a BN December with several snowy days with around 4 inches falling in the month. It had one week of AN temps from the 10th to the 17th. Nov 1967 was also cold at a similar level to this one. It has a fairly warm December that turned cold on the 22nd. It snowed for 7 days of the last 9 and with around 9 total inches. Nov 1995 is in the top 5 coldest. December was -2.8 and it snowed a little over an inch but snow fell on 7 different days. December 1969 was frigid. -6 BN. Had 8 snowy days including a huge Christmas snowstorm with over 10 inches for the month. December 1955 is the final of the 5 coldest Novembers. It ended -3.5 with snow on 7 different days with 2.5 inches falling. So of the 5 coldest Novembers, 4 of 5 Decembers ended BN temps and 4of them AN snowfall wise and 1 near normal snowfall wise. So the colder the November the higher the correlation to cold Decembers. Just based on that we should have a decent shot at a cold December with some snowy periods if this month continues its BN stretch as forecast.

Average temps for the month to date. Southeastern Valley areas (Knox to Chatt) aren't as cold as the rest of the area as far as their historical ranking but 11 of the years in their rankings are from before all the other places had weather stations besides Nashville and Memphis (pre-1920, mostly 1800s). Some of these don't have yesterday factored in yet as well. MBY 39.5 4th coldest Nov Crossville 39.5 5th coldest Nov Nashville 43.6 5th coldest Nov Murfreesboro 42.6 4th coldest Nov. Tri 42.6 8th coldest Nov. Chattanooga 47.6 18th coldest Knox 44.6 17th coldest. Morristown 44.1 4th coldest (only 21 years of records) Oak Ridge 44.9 2nd coldest (21 years) Tazewell 40.5 5th coldest Oneida 39.6 2nd coldest. Cookeville 44.6 17th coldest Clarksville 39.9 2nd coldest on record. Franklin 43 6th coldest. Mem 45.1 2nd coldest Tupelo 45.9 3rd coldest Jackson, TN 41.9 coldest on record. Jonesboro, AR 43.2 coldest on record. Jackson Ky, 41.3 coldest on record. London, Ky 40.9 3rd coldest Abington, Va 40.2 5th coldest.

Saw yesterday MRX put a graphic out that said this was Knoxville's earliest 1" snowfall and it listed November 1st 2014 at Tri-Cities. I knew that I had 3 inches on October 31st 1993, and I remember at least north Knoxville having an inch or more. I looked it up and it shows a trace at Tyson, but it shows 1.3 inches at Tri-Cities. not sure how MRX missed 1993.

13 this morning. Coldest in any record I have but I noticed that Knoxville set their record in 1911 so it could have been colder here at some point.

No November day will top November 25th, 1950. High 8, low -7 here. 8 inches of snow on the ground. It was -8 in Allardt that morning. Which may be the all time record low for November in Tennessee since a lot of stations weren't up back then. It was also -7 in Jamestown that morning and -6 in Monteagle.

This is the kind of day I enjoy in winter. It snowed all day long, no melting, temps stayed in the lower 20s. Very unusual to see this wintry an air mass this early.

Still snowing here as well. Quarter sized flakes out there. Upslope has added about 1/2 today.

1.25 inches. About 1/2 what the more optimistic models were spitting out here but pretty close to what the HRRR was showing towards the event approaching, which was around 1 inch. It closed schools here, so the kids are happy with it too.

Not a huge event, but November accumulations outside the last 10 days of the month aren't very common. This one gave us a preview of some model biases to keep in mind as winter unfolds. Hopefully this is the first of many tracking situations that actually works out for us to some extent.

Back edge is moving over me now. The snow band is expanding, cold air seems to be passing through the moisture faster or maybe it's being enhanced more, but I'll bet Knox-East and NE exceed WWA criteria.

I-75 in southern Campbell from a friend on his way to work.

Closing in on an inch, it's just been pouring for the last hour + now.

The burst of sleet here laid down a coating of ice that actually aided in sticking of everything. The sleet pellets were oddly large. Guess it was the big flakes melting and refreezing.