John1122
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Everything posted by John1122
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Actually getting moderate rain. After the extreme rains most of the 2020s so far, it seemed like I'd never have missed it so bad again. Fall droughts are the worst weather to me. Especially when near record high temperatures accompany them.
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Barely had misty sprinkles here so far. Hopefully it doesn't die out before we can get at least 1/4th inch. The November temperature outlook is deeply depressing for my winter loving self. We can still have a snowy winter after a warm November but the odds favor it going the other way. I hope we can get a few more rain events just to get the fire danger in the rear view.
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It's still burning and now 3 fires on the north side of the mountain I live on are going. All set right off the road. I'm hoping the nearly inch of rain the gfs was throwing out at 00z comes to pass by early next week.
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How did you get interested in following the weather?
John1122 replied to Carvers Gap's topic in Tennessee Valley
I grew up in the 70s around my grandfather. Our house was across the driveway. He was very weather focused for his whole life. Always recording what the weather was on a particular day to the best of his ability. He could "smell snow." I didn't understand how he could but it seemed like it always snowed when he said it was going to do it. Years later I realized it was the smell of burning coal that was often in the air when he predicted snow. Around here nearly everyone had coal burning stoves in their house for heat. I live/lived within a mile of multiple coal mines. Even now, in certain areas, I smell that smell when it's cold. Much less than back in those days. I loved Margie Ison back then. She was on channel 6. We only got 6 and 10 back then. Channel 26 was a thing but we never had much luck getting it to come in because it was UHF. When Margie started talking about Alberta clippers or a Siberian express, get the sleds ready because we were getting 3-6 inches of snow and it was going to be cold. My favorite weather events center around snow events. Not surprisingly at all. Two in particular from when I was a child strike me. One, we went to get carpet in Knoxville in the 1970s. I remember three things distinctly, my dad had borrowed a 1970s white ford utility van. My brother's and I had enough room to hold full on wrestling matches in the back as we drove there. It was a Sunday and we left with no snow on the ground. I remember being amazed at how big the rolls of carpet were in that warehouse. It was raining when we left the place in Knoxville. I think it was on Broadway. It was cold and coming down really hard. It poured all the way up I-75 until we started up the hill above Cherry Bottom in Southern Campbell County. Suddenly, about halfway up the hill, it started snowing. By the top, and further north in Campbell County it was a winter wonderland. There was probably four inches of snow down and it was pouring big, wet, goosefeathers. We all celebrated no school that next day. It was the first time I knew that winter weather was different here than it was points south of here. The second, my grandfather said we might as well not go to church that evening because it was going to snow and they'd call it off. This was probably 3pm. He hadn't had any way to watch weather that day. I stayed home with them but my mom made my little brother go. It was December 12th, and it got dark early. By 6pm it was dark and light snow, enough to dust the car tops had started. By 6:45 pm not much more had fallen. I started watching Ripley's Believe It or Not at 7pm and my brother came in about 7:30, church usually went from 7 to 8:15ish. He said that they barely made it home. I went and looked out and in 30 or 45 minutes about 3 inches of snow had fallen and it was pouring. We got 9 inches that evening into Monday morning. Days like that made me love winter and I was always trying to be more like my grandfather, and his weather love was infectious to me. -
I know that we definitely have cooler weather when sea surface temperatures there are cooler. He just says it's not a true oscillation, i.e. driven entirely on its own, but coincidental to outside factors such as solar forcing, volcanic activity and aerosols in the 60s and 70s. He even went back an reanalyzed the 850-1850 period and found that if you took out solar forcing and volcanic events, that there was nothing there to indicate an oscillation, and that overlayed, every peak and valley was centered around those events. I would guess that it's just very unlikely we ever go through long time periods without eruptions or solar forcing being a factor. After reading it, I'm not getting my hopes up there will be a flip without something to force it. But maybe he's wrong.
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Unfortunately, the AMO may not be a thing according to the person who actually thought he'd found it and gave it the name "AMO." Long article but he notes that the apparent AMO cycles can all be tied to external factors such as volcanic eruptions, solar activity and aerosols. He no longer sees evidence that there is an AMO. https://michaelmann.net/content/rise-and-fall-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation
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My friend who teaches in Briceville shared this from just after sunset.
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It's burning towards Cross Mountain. Hopefully it doesn't get there. This is a small foothill/ridge that sits in front of it. Cross Mountain has a 2700 foot elevation gain back behind that area and it does it quickly. It's almost completely vertical. Every 600 feet in elevation there's old strip pit roads cut around the mountain that are usually the only breaks. I'd guess the winds above 3000 feet will be 10+mph higher and the fire makes wind too.
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The 1960s are a different beast entirely when it comes to analogs, but 1965-66 was a strong Nino with a +2 peak in fall into early winter. October 1965 was dry with an inch or less of rain falling around the area as a rule. November 1965 was dry and warm as a rule. It finished +2 and was especially warm it's first week. Around 2 inches of precip fell for the month. December of 1965 started cold. A major cold front passed right at the end of November with highs in the mid 20s and lows in the lower teens on November 30th. It warmed up quickly and also finished +2. January 1966 (my brother was born Jan 20th) started warm. The first week was wet and had highs in the 50s. A pair of cold fronts were on the way. Behind the first, a fast shot of cold with light snow came by. The high on the 8th was 27 with a low of 12. It warmed all the way up to 51 on the 9th after a low of 13. The second cold front came through and pushed highs into the low 40s with lows in the 20s. Basically normal here for January. There was a dusting of snow. Another front passed on the 13th, with freezing rain on the 14th and two inches of snow on the 15th. Deeper cold pressed in behind that with highs in the 20s and low 30s with lows in the teens through the 20th. We had 3 days of snow that totaled an inch over that time frame. On the 22nd a major snow event happened across most of the valley region. 6 to 8 inches of snow fell. On the 26th 3 more inches of snow fell. Then on the 29th-31st a monster snowstorm hit with a massive arctic blast following it. 8-12 inches of snow was wide spread. We were -15 on the 30th and -19 on the 31st with highs of 6 and 10. We closed out January with 22 inches of snow and one of the coldest period ever and it had all happened after January 10th for the most part. The first five days of February were cold and it snowed each day. Then winter mostly ended. There was a wet snow in late February with 2 inches and 2 inches in early March. But that 2 or 3 weeks in January was just brutal. Otherwise from November through March we were generally AN.
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So far. I have a metal roof and try and keep the tinder well away from the house.
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And just like that, fires are popping all around my area. It's why I hate dry falls most of all.
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Back to 1963-64. As noted, pretty much valley wide we were looking at less than .10 rainfall in October. November saw a return to precip and by late month, it got cold. There was a big post Thanksgiving snow storm that dropped 4 to 7 inches around the area. December was frigid. A fast starting Nino. It snowed 10 different days and was extremely cold leading towards Christmas, the biggest was just 3/4ths inch though. Then a major snowstorm hit. There was 6 inches of snow here on the 22nd and 7 more on the 23rd. Fairly widespread 6+ inch event for the region. New Years Eve didn't want to get left out, we had 6 inches on Dec 31st. December finished -10.5 imby. It snowed two more inches on Jan 1st. There was another 4 inch event on January 14th. After that the second half of January was warmish. The month ended up right at normal temp wise. February was warm for the first few days, then we had a rain to snow event on the 5th/6th with 5 inches of snow falling. Another 4 inch event came on the 19th-21st with long duration snow showers and temps in the 20s. We had a 5 inch event February 28th. March was mild. But we had nearly four feet of snow for the winter imby. And many of those events were valley wide. That's how things changed after that very bone dry October.
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This would be awesome.
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Right now, it looks like October 1963 is about as dry as any October I can find here. There was only a trace of rainfall here, Knoxville and Crossville. 1963-64 was a moderate Nino. I'll talk more about that winter later, I'm about to head to Walker Valley for high school playoff football.
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I hope the GFS is onto something with the Miller A in about 8-9 days. We desperately need the rain and Western NC would get a winter event out of it.
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Some graphics from a winter forecast that popped up on my notifications.
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26.8 this morning. The leaves are mostly gone now. Probably gonna be down in the lower 20s tonight.
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These photos are from Nashville in January 1977, from January 1st through the 28th. The cold and snow were state wide. It was more extreme in the normal places, Plateau/Mountains/SWVa but it was -13 to -17 across the whole valley for the month. Jan 1st Jan 3rd Jan 6th Jan 9th Jan 11th Jan 19th Jan 22nd Jan 24th Jan 28th
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February was frigid. It was February 23rd before we had a 24 hour period where the temperature didn't fall below freezing. Feb 1st-11th the lows were -2, 0, 2, 20, 19, 1,0, -1, 0, 14, 17. Another cold shot brought low single digits later in the month. Snow fell on 9 days of the month but the biggest was just over an inch. It was really dry, as cold weather here often is. February was around -6 overall, and that was with a warm warm final week with temps in the 70s. January was -16.
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I grew up thinking every winter would be that way, because it seemed like every one was or was close to it.
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Have had a few snow flurries passing by under some clouds over the last hour or so.
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The cold of January 1977 was unlike anything I've ever seen. I was a kid and thought the 70s and early 80s were normal. We regularly got 4+ inch snows that snowed on top of snow. Schools being out 1 to 2 weeks were common. January '77 was so cold here that we only reached 40+ degrees 3 days. One of those was 40 even. The highest temperature of the whole month was 47. 10 days we had below 0 lows. 6 more days had lows between 5 and 0. 20 days the high was 32 or below. In December 1976 we had 2.5 inches of snow on December 21st-22nd, 3 inches December 25-26th, 6.5 inches the 29-Jan 1st 1977. That led to a -11 degree low on New Years. We got 1/2 inch on Jan 4th, 4 inches on the 7th, 7 inches on the 10th. 14th and 15th we got 1/2 inch of snow and .35 freezing rain. That led into back to back days of -17 degree lows with highs in the single digits. These are the high/lows the last 20 days of Jan 1977 imby. Jan 11th 25/-5 Jan 12th 24/-7 Jan 13th 28/2 Jan 14th 35/2 Jan 15th 36/24 Jan 16th 38/5 Jan 17th 8/-17 Jan 18th 19/-17 Jan 19th 16/-7 Jan 20th 23/-2 Jan 21st 17/1 Jan 22nd 28/3 Jan 23 31/12 Jan 24th 31/20 (snowed 6 inches 24th-26th) Jan 25th 29/22 Jan 26th 34/20 Jan 27th 43/20 Jan 28th 45/25 Jan 29th 29/-10 Jan 30th 23/-1 Jan 31st 29/-3 As noted by Daniel Boone, snow was constantly on the ground all winter. I recall hardly going to school that entire month and being able to go sledding basically every day.
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Impressive turn today after it being actually hot and muggy yesterday. 48 degrees with some light showers so far. I'm hoping for a 1/4th of an inch but probably won't get there looking at radar trends.
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I just read a story that the PV was going to get very stretched out and send cold into North America through early November. It's been modeled to elongate quite a bit by November 3rd or so from the images in the story. It was from a site that normally deals with European weather patterns.
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The rain here was pretty decent, around .70. This hasn't been like a typical dry spell in fall, because usually those tend to feature a lot of sun and a lot of AN temps. The short periods of rain we've gotten were allowed to soak in because of extended cloudy stretches, and coolish temperatures. I do know I've been luckier with rain than those south of I-40.
