Carvers Gap

We have been fooled once already this season, but the EPS is showing what I consider to be a significant pattern shift over NA with a big ridge holding out West with a low over the Aleutians. Not wasting much time going into the details. Pattern change is now within seven days though. Maybe those CPC maps are on the money. If so, we have MUCH cooler temps on the way and soon.

Worth a read from the MA forum regarding the +QBO in relation to Nina winters which follow a Nino.

CPC maps made today depict BN temps in the 6-10 day, 8-14 day, and 3-4 week experimental forecast ranges. Not often one sees that. I will even settle for seasonal.

Whew! It was warm yesterday. Starting to get flashbacks of last September. Looks like a cool down is on the way for the latter third of the month. That said, we hit 90(or above) fourteen times last September. We have hit it zero times so far during this September at TRI. We may very well hit it today though, but still much improved! Watching cross country runners fight the heat yesterday afternoon....glad I was a spectator and glad there was some shade on the course!!! I have much respect for young people who can traverse a course in that heat and humidity.

Time to wake this place up after a few days nap. Looks like LR models are again signaling a cool-off in the East just after ten days(we know the drill when we hear "ten days"). Anyway, I suspect modeling is on to another shot of BN air entering the Lower 48 in the d10-16 time frame - maybe even a bit earlier. edit: Euro OP has it inside of d10.

Completely missed that last paragraph. My deepest apologies for not seeing that. How is it going Jax? Also, thanks for the consistent ENSO updates.

Hey, I actually like one big storm to take all of the leaves down!!!! LOL. I don't like getting nickel and dimed with leaf work. I like seeing howlers come through and just strip every leaf.

Nah...no jinx. Yeah, noticed those trends yesterday morning. They are very similar to last winter. Models dump cold west after an original false push eastward. But hey, it is not winter and I like seeing anomalous cold in the pattern early. Last September, the entire country was baking during Sept and Oct. Changing wavelengths will shake up the pattern...and those changing wavelengths appear to be occurring a bit early. It is possible that modeling just jumped the gun a bit. Wouldn't be surprised to see the cooler air dump eastward at some point shortly after the head fake time frame.

Rains have definitely increased IMBY. It looks like spring here with all of the green. So far this is the antithesis of September last year. Leaves should look awesome this year.

The seasonal CANSIPS which was released today looks much improved for Dec/Jan at 500. My interpretation is that model is touting a seasonal start to winter and then backing West sometime in early to mid January. Also, I would interpret that a flip to cold begins sometime in mid-late November. The model also implies there may be periodic pushes of cold during January before a full retreat to torch city for February. Very classic Nina pattern. Here is the Dec look which is not half bad with a. nice EPO/PNA ridge(more EPO than PNA for sure):

Honestly, I am game for a nice September and then a warmish Oct through mid-Nov. That might give us a colder start to winter, allow for a thaw, and then maybe steal a cold shot in late Jan/early Feb in the middle of warm wx.

Some pretty strong highs showing up in that time frame as well...1040 on the Euro late in its run in fantasy land. Euro control is quite chilly at 12z as well. Would be a nice contrast to last September for sure!

Just for kicks and giggles...the 18zGFS has temps in the upper 30s over the eastern mountains post 300 after a system runs rolls inland. You know I have though that if a system from the GOM were to catch a cold front coming in around Sept 10th....that would be might cold rain!!!!

Great info and I may tag onto some of your thoughts. To echo Jeff, I do like what the LR models are cooking up....anything beats the temps last fall. La Nina's are definitely a plus the further west one goes, and worse towards the EC. That said, I think analog packages have really struggled of late. So, I am beginning to think future winters are going to have a lot of variability within analog packages. Honestly, if I had to amend my upcoming winter ideas at exactly this moment...I might cool them off slightly if the weak La Nina verifies. Might go something like normalish Dec, slightly above Jan, very warm Feb in regards to temps. For now, I will refrain from amending. That said, a normalish Dec and slightly above Jan will get the job done in regards to temps...just don't want BN precip. I would normally place weak La Nina at the top of my preferred ENSO state list followed by weak El Nino....Man, after last winter, I am not sure which ENSO state is better. After watching the IO and the SSTs west of the dateline pretty much eliminate winter, I may be giving those two places more consideration - maybe even top shelf consideration. The MJO has really driven winter of late. I "think" if we can get the equatorial western Pacific to cool marginally (without going to a moderate or strong La Nina), we might have some chances. That region has been causing the MJO to rotate through warm phases during winter. The IO is a part of that cycle as it sent plenty of energy last winter into that region which caused convection. If we could get the ENSO region 4 to cool and/or the IO to reduce the amount of energy it is sending eastward....we might not have the MJO cycling so strongly(and multiple times) into phases 4-6 during winter. I like the weak La Nina being modeled on some LR stuff, if it is west based, because it "might" help us with the MJO. I realize there are about 1,000 other things that can screw things up...but I may take my chances with a weak La Nina. Those winters seem to produce a lot of northern stream energy for NE TN. Weak La Nina winters also have a tendency to produce at least one really severe cold shot during winter, sometimes two. Hey, a great example of something so minor really messing with NA weather is that area of high(might have been low) pressure that just wouldn't move east of the Urals. Someone might remember that more clearly. That little feature absolutely changed the entire hemispheric pattern for the winter. La Nina patterns are tricky. They tend to produce cool early winters. What is tough after that is they tend to flip quite warm...but sometimes the cold returns. I have often been fooled by a great looking late fall and December pattern during La Nina years...and then the winter goes West and never comes back. But I agree, western sections should benefit as La Nina winters produce just enough SER to send the "low road" storm tracks through middle TN. The QBO is a big problem right now as it has not cycled into negative territory strongly and is now potentially signaling yet another double dip into positive at 30mb. It will be interesting to see how that interacts with a weak La Nina. That might be a bad combo off the top of my head.

So, is modeling correcting towards a weaker La Nina. Saw that mentioned as a possibility in the MA winter thread? If so, that is a significant.

Hey, if it just gets hot like last summer....We can call this second summer, along the lines of second breakfast. Why? Because one summer is not enough for this forum that loves winter weather. LOL.

Saw where the QBO 30mb rose a couple of points during July. Could be good or could be bad...If it pops positive with a La Nina, that is a warm signal for winter. OTH, maybe it really hasn't gotten its act together and truly dropped. Anyway, two straight months w a slight positive trajectory. I am "hoping" that the stall means we might get a couple of extra months of run in the negative towards the end of winter.

2020 FTW!!!!

Great share. Your Hickory Cane corn is massive. As for how my garden is doing? Pretty much switched over to all summer stuff. This was a big year for potatoes and garlic. Summer stuff is about 2-3 weeks behind due to the late start, but it is going to hit in a wave pretty soon. Been a banner pepper year. I will try to get some pics uploaded later. My garden looks night and day to what it was two months ago. It has gone nuts. Copper spray has kept much of the disease away on my tomatoes - so far. Should be a really good garden year. Need more rain as this heat really sucks the moisture right out of the ground. No amount of humidity can slow moisture loss in 90+ degree heat. The soil just gets baked.

Going to keep it simple this year... December: Seasonal temps / BN precip January: AN temps / BN precip February: AN temps / BN precip Best chances for snow will occur late November into early January. Expecting a big thaw in January this year, BUT I do think we see bouts of serious cold this winter despite my AN temps forecast. I was really bullish at the end of last winter regarding the upcoming winter being a dud. And it may well be. Strong to moderate La Nina's are generally a non-starter IMBY. The good news, as I have stated before, is that we really need the Pacific to cool down some, and it has been some time since we have seen a strong La Nina. Winters that have followed strong La Ninas can be pretty good in MBY, so I will suffer through a strong Nina event if need be this winter. That said, we all saw last winter when phase 7-8-1 had constant precip last winter and the MJO would not go there at all. I don't think that happens this winter with La Nina - meaning those regions should have cooler SSTs and less convection propagating through them. If anything, the door is open for the MJO to at least cycle through colder phases 2-3 times IMHO. I don't think it locks into those regions, but who knows....I don't close the door on anything this far out. The IO is yet another unknown. While I won't be surprised to see several waves propagate eastward this winter from the IO, I think a BN SST setup in MJO regions 7, 8, and 1 will potentially weaken those waves. So, here are my components for the upcoming winter in order of importance: 1. Moderate La Nina: That should dry things out this fall, maybe even causing an early start to winter. The question is, "When does the atmosphere transition to a Nina pattern?" Right now, still looks like a hungover Nino pattern. What would be swell is if the Nino pattern could hang on long enough to temper the normally prolonged summer that Nina's are known for. Then, even better, Nina kicks in and we get early season cold. We have a shot at that combo the longer that Nino holds on. However, have to think some much AN heat will show up during September at some point with a quick flip to cold in November. 2. MJO sea surface regions 7, 8, and 1 "should" cool off. That will balance point one, and provide maybe some temporary but severe bouts of cold. 3. The SER. I think it sets up shop on the EC. "Where?" is the question. Ideally, we want it closer to the coast. If it bulls its way westward, then E TN will fight it all winter. Might not be a terrible thing for areas in west TN though, and even middle. If we can get it to belly into the coast only, we could do better than my above forecast. 4. Precip is likely to be BN in MBY. That means even if it gets cold, we have fewer pitches to swing at. But honestly, last winter was pretty crappy. We can always do worse, but odds are that this year won't be. 5. Nina winters usually have a tendency to send some severe cold into the SE even though the overall winter is AN in the norms. 6. QBO. It has stalled a bit lately. If it comes back up, we have trouble. We do not want a short negative phase. My guess is that this stall might mean that get 1-2 more months of negative(referring to the 14 month phase lasting a bit longer) than normal. That means we could make it most of winter with a decent QBO. It would be better if the QBO were to go positive in late April or May vs March. 7. Wildcard....Just how hot will it get this summer/early fall in the SE? Seems like once the furnace turns on, it takes a lot of time to evacuate that air. So far, so good. Last year, I was feeling pretty good during July about a nice fall...and then September just went bonkers. As for snow, everybody wants to know how much we are going to get. The answer is that it is absolutely impossible to know. I think our best chances will be early. After that, one would think that January and February will provide some very long timeframes between chances. That said, it just "seems" the weather pattern from the past two years right is switching up. We are out of shoulder season which fooled me into thinking the pattern had broken early last winter(the pattern being a little pocket trough forming ad nauseam over the Mountain West in the front range). With some big heat already being felt in the Mountain West and a transient ridge reforming every few weeks there...makes me think we are seeing a transition. So, I am less negative about the upcoming winter. My gut says it will be better than I describe above, but my brain says to beware of moderate to strong Nina patterns - they are generally hostile to winter in the SE. So, I will go with BN snowfall, but maybe closer to normal than many will forecast, but better than last winter. Short and sweet with no graphics.

I think I will put out some winter wx ideas during the next couple of weeks. I would expect a prolonged summer followed by a short fall season. The transformation to La Nina is moving along pretty quickly. Things are drying out somewhat here. But hey, it really couldn't have been much soggier. I think December goes against recent trends and goes seasonal which would fit Nina wx patterns. Jan should be warm. Feb should be warm, but might be less warm than Jan. I do think we will see one or two extremely cold shots of cold air during the winter. For whatever reason, a part of me feels like this winter is going to buck climatology - I am really going to have to fight the urge to go with that instinct and just roll with science. Science says this winter should be warm with some bouts of extreme but short bouts of cold - meaning islands of cold in a sea of warmth. My gut is less sure of that. At some point our winters will turn colder. Seems like the winters out West during the past decade have been snowy no matter what the wx pattern. During the late 80s and 90s, that was the opposite in many cases. Makes me wonder if that trends shifts eastward at some point. Anyway, the AMO is likely many years from being helpful. The QBO, interestingly, has stalled in the single digits around -5. That could mean that it is not going to stay negative for long OR it could mean that the QBO cycle is stalled and is not fully in the negative phase yet, delaying the onset of the next positive phase. Anyway, will try to dig a little more in the coming weeks. If I lived out West, I would be really excited about this winter, especially the northern Rockies. Last winter was about as bad as it gets here...so really no where to go but up. Pacific temp gradients(reference typhoon tip and Jeff here) have washed-out typical Pacific influences recently. Might it be that the La Nina restores that gradient AFTER this winter. Also, the IO will have a say.

Still like this overall call, but would move the overall temps for winter to AN (and not slightly)...still with some extreme cold embedded in an overall warmer pattern. I think we do see some blocking, but we likely better score on the front end of winter. A strong Nina would likely be a warm and dry winter in NE TN. Moderate has a strong lean warm IMBY. However, there are some cold winters embedded within modern Nina climatology. That said, right now climatology has not been a great predictor of late IMHO.

I once walked into the old House of Ribs in Johnson City and saw Nikita Koloff and Lex Luger eating dinner together after a match, and having a great time.

Yours looks good as well! Just finished. Whew. We extended the edges of those tarps that are doubled over above. Used big splits from the woodpile as anchors. Our set-ups look remarkably similar! I use wheat straw to hill-up my potatoes since I don't have a don't of ton of extra dirt. We put it down earlier this week - hoping that provides support for the tarp and extra insulation. The wind is a pain. Unfortunately, it has gone to dead calm for now - right as we finished! Sets the stage for quite a cold night up here. Need some wind to help with mixing to shorten the time below freezing. Good luck, Stovepipe and to our other gardeners and farmers!

This is what it looked like Thursday night. Getting ready to head out now and get it ready - in the driving wind and drizzle. Was trying to let the wind dry things off a bit, but looks like this upslope stuff is going to be here off and on. For scale, the hoop house is about four feet tall and the fence is 6' tall.