Carvers Gap

And there is a storm to track on Friday it appears.

Colder than normal February is a beautiful thing to me. Most of my snows across my life at my location have been in February. There is some can kicking of the cold...I just haven't posted in a bit. It is more like weeks 2-4 of Feb as the MJO is gonna get toasty after the 22nd. We were gonna have to pay that toll at some point. It is possible that we may have a cold shot around the 30th, warm-up, and then hit the cold skids during the second week of Feb. I do urge a bit of caution to new posters (not you, Shawn). Originally, Jan 10-20th looked very warm. That can got kicked about ten days. So, any kind of strong cutter or storm is gonna bring down a lot of cold air, even during what looks like a warm-up timeframe. The first week or two of March could be cold but the jury is still out. This winter reminds me a lot of 95-96 which had a big storm, a warm-up, and then got cold again. I am maybe a little less confident that Feb is gonna be cold than I was a few weeks ago, but still reasonably confident.

For folks in NE TN, we might not have but a handful of hours above freezing for the next 6 days. Apple has my temp at -2 tomorrow morning.

Starting to look that way. I-26 between I-81 and Weber City is a mess. With temps dropping all day tomorrow, it is going to get cold tomorrow night!

The obligatory "sheet cake" picnic table photo....

6" for the storm so far.

I am hoping for the day you have to put a 2 liter back there for measurement purposes. Great photos!!!

Sitting at about 5.25" of snow. I hate it for the rest of the TRI folks who were dealing with snow/rain issues. Probably will come close to 6" of snow if these last bands work out.

Just a hair under five inches of snow.

I am thankful not to be in their shoes this evening. LOL. It is literally raining on one side of Kingsport a the moment and heavy snow on the other. That is a difference of about 7-10 miles. Good luck in the Burg!!!

I would guess it is maybe there now. With rates increasing over E TN, that is probably the lee side buckling the flow just a hair....Tellico would know more on that.

Yes, I agree.

We have crept to 4.5" of snow so far in my area of Kingsport.

For sure it wasn't the only thing....something pushed the warm air across the valley from east to west. That I don't know for sure what mechanism caused it. I tend to think downslope, but it may just be that TRI takes longer to get colder w/ east to west cold fronts.

Yes, but still a lot to be ironed out. Then a MONSTER warm-up the next week(day 8-14) 5-10 days worth, and then a colder Feb than maybe we have been used to....maybe.

Prob sleet....could be heavy snow though.

TRI has been above freezing all day. I think warming yesterday (clouds moved in later and at perfectly the wrong time) seeded the problems for today. We got too warm yesterday afternoon due to sun. Then clouds moved in and capped that warmth so it couldn't radiate out. Time of day IMO was the single, biggest determining factor of who got what.

It is the evaporation due to heavy precip that cools the air column. Kind of like if you get wet on a cold day, and you feel colder. Once that column cools, snow can travel the entire length of its trip without melting. I suppose it could pull some cold air down, but I would guess it is more due to evaporational cooling. If somebody has a better answer, have at it. I am a bit over my skis so to speak. When we aren't fighting daylight....that is also another factor in cooling.

We have kicked and clawed our way to 4" of snow. Rates right now are decent. Within an hour we should be dealing with cooling due to darkness and higher rates. Hopefully, that will force the rain/snow line to recede.

This reminds me a lot of a storm in 1986 around TRI. Got a good front end thump, and then had mixing issues the rest of the way. I remember having a snowball fight that night in the rain w/ some friends while in HS.

Forgot to mention the lee side slp. Normally that is a huge plus, but when the cold front stalled....it didn't help areas with marginal temps. Never did I imagine that warm air would seep all the way to I-81(further in some cases). Crazy dynamics. Hopefully, as it gets dark and rates increase...maybe some areas will switch back to snow and get thumped.

Moderate to heavy-ish snow in Kingsport.

It is driving me nuts. I LOVE the observations. It is the best part of the storm. The problem is that in NE TN, the storm is 12 hours behind initial reports. BTW, big slug of precip headed TRI's way...I would think rates will flip rain to snow when it arrives. We have hit the leading edge of the precip here.

You are not alone in middle and west TN. Even in Knoxville, the over performed early as the cold air made it that far and stopped. Precip shield expanded northward. Again, the NAM had it - but for the wrong reason (over amped). All modeling missed it until the RAP and HRRR came on board. The model that correctly modeled the cold air intrusion to Knoxville and then stopped it....that is the one that is correct...and the model which correctly backfilled the precip track over middle and west TN without having track issues over E TN. The ICON is the winner in my book. It got both scenarios right with the first and second wave it appears.

I definitely recommend at least trying a dedicated observation thread next time. The problem is that we have model talk and observations buried in the same thread. My two cents, and my opinion is probably worth exactly that. We(NE TN) are about 12-14 hours behind the onset of precip in western areas. While observations are (and we HUGELY appreciate those as it makes it easier to see which model is actually initializing correctly) rolling, the storm is still being modeled in far NE areas.