Carvers Gap

Tonight Snow showers likely. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. Cloudy, with a low around 24. Wind chill values as low as -2. Strong and damaging winds, with a southwest wind 95 to 100 mph, with gusts as high as 125 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible. Sunday Occasional snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. High near 40. Wind chill values as low as zero. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southwest wind 65 to 75 mph decreasing to 47 to 57 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 90 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Sunday Night Occasional snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. Low around 31. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southwest wind 40 to 47 mph, with gusts as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Monday Occasional snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. High near 40. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southeast wind 37 to 47 mph decreasing to 24 to 34 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Monday Night Snow showers likely before 8pm, then scattered rain showers. The rain and snow could be heavy at times. Cloudy, with a low around 28. Strong and damaging winds, with a south southwest wind 24 to 29 mph increasing to 35 to 40 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 49 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible. Tuesday Scattered rain showers before 2pm, then scattered rain and snow showers. The rain and snow could be heavy at times. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 41. Very windy, with a south wind 30 to 33 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Tuesday Night Scattered rain and snow showers before 2am, then scattered rain showers. The rain and snow could be heavy at times. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 32. Very windy, with a south southeast wind 26 to 31 mph decreasing to 20 to 25 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Wednesday Scattered showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 44. Windy, with an east southeast wind 20 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Wednesday Night Scattered showers before 8pm. Clear, with a low around 33. Windy, with an east southeast wind 21 to 30 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Blizzard warnings for the higher elevations of Hawaii right now. Let that sink in for a minute. Someone wake-up Jim Cantore. Incredible forecast. See below...

The 18z GFS is very close to a major winter storm next weekend. It is similar to the CMC. Ways out there, and everyone should now the drill.

@nrgjeff, been digging on this and can't find it. I am seeing substantial heights build over Scandinavia and the Urals on the EPS. Seems like that is a precursor to cold here or maybe a strat warm. I can't remember if either is true. Right now I see roughly three pools of warm and three cold, tri-pole right? Maybe that configuration is muting that ridge's influence here?

Ya'll, I am actually thankful for the break in the cold from the last month. @Holston_River_Rambler, check out the 12z GEFS. See that trough develop(retrogrades west) just east of Hawaii late in the run? Probably have to use the northern hemisphere view to see it. That argues for a big ridge out west. Also notice the AN heights rotate out of Europe into Scandanavia. Roll the forward about 48 hours and the trough reforms in the East. There is an argument there for the eastern ridge to break down. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the ridge only lasts for a week and a half.

That would be accumulating snowfall on the 12z CMC about 7 days out. The GFS also loses the eternal ridge. Cold air attacks it over and over.

Again, the thing that is so very suspicious is that modeling locks this pattern in for 4-5 months in some cases. It could happen, but those looks are more than likely wrong. We have seen this over and over again during recent winters where modeling will show a pattern repeating for months on end. I tend to buy into 4-6 weeks weather cycles. If so, this current warm cycle should break sometime during late December (at the earliest) or by mid-January(latest). Now, that doesn't mean the new pattern is any better. I am just saying the repetitive pattern at 500 is suspicious. There are an increasing number of cold outliers in modeling even as we speak, but not worth really mentioning until those become trends. And if models are missing troughs amplifying in the East, that is probably something that will continue.

That ridge is going to want to hold in the East. La Nina is famous for that feature, but when it relaxes extreme cold surges eastward after building in the northern Rockies and Canadian prairies. It is interesting that Rockies have had so little snow right now. They love La Nina winters, and right now La Nina has not kicked in out there - but it is about to. The other interesting thing is that wx modeling seems to be missing troughs pushing eastward. I think they are handling phase 7 of the MJO poorly. Now, as we get closer to January, phase 7 switches from cold to warm in our region. Biggest takeaway from modeling right now is that wx models are getting the base pattern likely correct, BUT are missing trough amplifications. Those little troughs in the long range, are turning into much more formidable features as they draw closer. Now, if someone wants a true bummer for a Saturday, look what happened after the cold in '89. That is what we don't want.

@Mr. Kevin, Joe D'Aleo of WxBell published an article today about this analog year which was mentioned yesterday on this forum.

Man, I was loving it. I have been freezing my tail off in the morning. Bout the earliest I have ever had to dig out my running gloves. The lake at Bays Mountain near Feagins Gap had ice on the beaver ponds there. Not sure I have ever seen ice on that arm of the lake this early. Morristown released the November data....very cold and very dry. Chattanooga had the driest November during the last 80 years.

Yep. That followed an extended run of -NAO blocking. Both of those overwhelmed a really bad Pac set-up and a terrible MJO cycle with the exception of the 8-2-1 loop in December which worked well in E TN. -NAOs tend to run in cycles. Would be nice to get another this winter. Not feeling that, but who knows...maybe.

But it wouldn't be the first time at our latitude that we have gotten the shaft. LOL. We are used to it.

7 is not a warm phase during December though. It is cold to the Apps. Now, if it is stuck in January....it is a warm signal. It is part of the reason Decembers are often cold during La Nina's. The same Pacific set-up which makes December cold works against us during Jan/Feb. There are definitely cracks in modeling right now. No idea if that amounts to anything. But just imagine walking out on the ice, and the cracking noise becomes more frequent. That is what we are "listening" for. Right now, they are just random off runs. But make no mistake, modeling lost next weekend's amplification after originally having it. My guess is that we are going to have strong ridges this winter. I just don't see any way around that. However, I think the cold is going to push more than LR modeling depicts. We have seen that over and over again since early November. Hey, we manage a super cold shot last year with crap MJO phases. I will dig around this weekend and try to find some examples of MJOs that rotated 3-6 and still had snow. There is some correlation to North Carolina snowstorms and maybe phase 3? The North Carolina guys can correct me on that.

Haven’t looked at WXBell today. There are some similarities to 84-85, but to me that is a stand alone year. It is like a 100 year blizzard like ‘93. Not sure anyone can predict extremes like that with a ton of lead time. We will see more extreme cold and snow in our lifetimes. Harkening back to last year, the AMO has to flip for those winters of old to return regularly.

Plus, for whatever reasons, modeling has been missing amplifications for about the past 4-6 weeks. Not sure why.

I think there are some likely differences getting worked out in modeling. There should be cold pushing further East with an MJO phase 7. Ensembles are still pretty rock solid though. But if the models are going to crack, operationals will crack first.

The 12z GFS has a minor, northwest flow event for favored areas next weekend as well - meaning snow showers with minor accumulations on northwest facing slopes.

@jaxjagman, looks you called it with the cold shot next weekend. 12z GFS/GEFS has it and so does the Euro at 12z. I think this is a great example(if it verifies) of why modeling that looks wall-to-wall warm(or cold) is highly suspicious. Makes me wonder if there is a model input problem in terms of data.

The 12th-19th on the 12z GFS is now BN.

Yal'll we are going to have to get our act together if we are going to have a prolonged warm-up! 12z Euro with a true winter time air mass plunging into the East late in the run. HUGE grains of salt, but that is why I am skittish right now with modeling. Mercy, that is cold - some BN anomalies of 15-20 degrees.

12z CMC has winter weather centered on the 8th in areas on the northern and central Plateau, southeast Kentucky, and southwest Virginia. The Euro had a similar solution but was slightly north.

Jeff is the guru with angular momentum stuff. I admittedly look at not as often as I should. For me, some things in the LR don't quite add up. That said, there are some Nina's which were very warm winters. I highly doubt we go 12 weeks without some chances. Biggest concern right now is the dry pattern. I have generally found that winters with few chances often have very long periods where it doesn't have any precip. That means that an unfavorable temp pattern combined with drought makes it super difficult to sync cold air and infrequent precip. So, we need the frequency of precip to increase in addition to a more favorable temp pattern in the LR. It is really dry IMBY. That needs to change. As for where the pattern begins. I have always felt that because the weather pattern is a circle of sorts, it is hard to tell what causes what. SSTs are generally a great place. However, mountain torque is an under discussed driver(maybe the Urals?). Snow cover does matter. Sea ice numbers across the North Pole matter. I would suspect dust from the Sahara probably has some influence. And on and on.... But I generally agree that Eastern Asia and the Pacific are big drivers. Jax and Jeff look at those regions much more than I do, and know way more than me regarding those regions. Jax has a website that is pretty cool which correlates Bering Sea 500 heights with our regions. High latitude blocking is also important - reference to the SSW discussions. Just really looking for the driver each winter. I generally have found that when we are talking about the MJO in this forum, that the pattern has gone to crap! LOL. Right now, the MJO is the driver. That could change. My rule of thumb is the winter pattern begins to show itself around the third or fourth week of December. I do suspect the November pattern will repeat at some point. Get us some thunder in the mountains, and we know the change is coming. Going to enjoy running in some nice weather. Those November low temps were kicking my tail, man. LOL. It was cold in the morning here!!!!

Agree, Jax. Probably more likely severe than wintry but who knows. Just looking through model ensembles. The 12z EPS late in the run is trying to bring a ridge into the GOA(also found on the control run as well, especially the control run). Maybe a -EPO develops after that? 10th-20th looks pretty well set though as Jax mentions the 11-12th may hold some surprises in terms of the 500 pattern. Get a ridge in the GOA, and the western trough is either going to be very sharp or forced to kick eastward. So after the 20th, could be a continuation of a western trough or a ridge out West could develop for a time.

Crazy looking ice storm on the 12z CMC for the western half of the state around 144. Likely a one off, but impressive run nonetheless.

Very possible. Seems like that area may have had some snow that we didn't have in NE TN. We have family in Mo-town.