TellicoWx

River is beginning to near crest, about 1 1/2' below flood stage. Received 1.63" overnight, bringing total to 2.75".

2 hours ago, janetjanet998 said:

click for latest. (2027z time stamp)     .YIKES

00z increased totals some:

Just had a message from Polk Co swift water team, deployed 3 hrs ago for two people submerged in a creek..unfortunately 1 fatality.

Picked up 0.11" so far today, and the gauge is already beginning to rise. There is zero water being soaked into the ground here, everything is going straight into the river. If we get anywhere close to 2003 level on the gauge, swift water teams will be deployed.

SWS just issued for tonight from MRX:

Heavy rain forecast for today and tonight...

Showers leading to heavy rain across eastern Tennessee and SW
North Carolina for Sunday and Sunday night. Up to an inch and a
half is possible especially across the southern Tennessee valley
and the Smokey Mountains with possibly heavier local amounts. Due
to the saturation of the ground from previous rain events, most of
the rainfall is expected to result in excessive runoff with some
areas of localized flooding possible. Stream flooding, roadway
flooding, ponding of low level areas and potential mud slides are
all possible.

Lesser amounts are expected for the central valley region and
more northern areas of the forecast area, including the Cumberland
plateau. Due to saturated soils and rainfall from the last 24
hours, some local flooding could occur in the northern areas of
the forecast area as well.

MRX AFD:

Main flooding concern starts late Tuesday and Tuesday night. Strong
upper jet becomes established over the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys
with strong upper divergence over the area from Tuesday night
through Wednesday night. The direct circulation around this jet
enhances the fronto-genetic forcing over the area and intensifies
the 850mb southerly jet pulling in unseasonably high moisture. PWs
increase to 1.4 to 1.5 inches which is above the daily climatology
maximum. Another concern is that freezing heights are quite high
which are also well above the daily climatology maximum. Layer
above freezing will be greater than 10kft over much of the area
helping to produce high rainfall rates.

End result, another round of heavy rainfall over already saturated
ground/high stream flows will set the stage for the potential of
serious flash flooding concerns, especially over the Plateau,
central-southern Tennessee, and southwest North Carolina. Will
highlight this concern in the Hazardous Weather Outlook and
Hydrologic Outlook.

The persistent southwest flow continues through the end of the week
with the potential of additional moderate to locally heavy rains
for Thursday through Saturday. Overall, a very wet pattern with
flooding concerns continuing.

River flooding looks to be a major problem as well from mid to late
next week, possibly into the next weekend.

Picked up 1.01" overnight, with a rise of 1.2' on the Tellico River. Currently at 3' (Flood stage is 9') some of the banks start topping a little sooner. One of the interesting things was how long it took to recede, continued rising 5 hrs after the rain stopped. Normally it takes a little less than an hour for the graph to begin falling, shows how much runoff is coming down the mountain.

18z GFS run total: non stop wave after wave.

18z GFS just doubled down..cant remember an event quite like what's being shown. Scary part, as some have said already, is modeling lately at this range is underperforming vs realtime. 

17 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

You were right on with that earlier comment.  I always chuckle when I see those hints....because I pretty much know the hammer is going to drop on a future run.  

Different ensemble members across all models have had a similar solution as the GFS op run. Everything is on the table at this range...if the PNA cooperates even slightly, that outcome would not surprise me.

We need the PNA to at least get to neutral or go positive between the 18 and the end of the month for one last window (excluding a freak storm). Everything else looks good for that timeframe.

2 hours ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

As soon as the cold air departs, we get a perfect shortwave track:

 

Yeah, the effects of the strat split are waning and we returned to the AN/wet regime of the prior warm state. PNA running mod neg for awhile, will help strengthen the SER. One thing I'm worried about is major flooding, PNA/SER combo is going to point a firehose at us or west TN one.

On 1/31/2019 at 9:59 AM, Carvers Gap said:

With the wx being less predictable than normal this winter, hard to say what spring will look like.  What "should" happen has rarely happened this winter.  I suspect the same unpredictability continues as long as the MJO is abnormally amped.  I will take a few 70s during March, but it seems when spring gets warm early....that summers tend to get really hot.  I will save the 80s for late April and May.  LOL.  The crazy thing is this cool, cloudy wx(not talking BN temps)....that has been a constant this winter during a winter of inconsistent forecast models.  I doubt that stops anytime soon either.  Again, the reason I don't like Nino winters is because winters often arrive about the time everyone is pretty much over winter.  They are also fairly dreary....not big extremes in terms of temps, but the real feel is cool because of the high humidity.  

Lastly, (I think Jeff mentioned this possibility) without the past PV split during early January, we likely don't see a return of cold during January.  IMHO, and I differ with others, I think the abnormal convection in the western Pac and Indian Oceans is suspect #1.  Without the PV splitting, I think we would have had a blowtorch.  The cold right now fits with the 2-3 week lag that PV splits have in regards to cold in the East.  The temps in Chicago IMHO are likely due to that split.  There will be plenty of debate about all of that....That said, for those calling for a backloaded winter...they have already pocketed minor nice snow event here in E TN north of I-40, one in DC, and record cold in the Chicago region.  There will be a relaxation it appears, but if winter returns again....then I think the backloaded winter idea had some real merit.

And the QBO...it went positive and the NAO has been reluctant to turn strongly negative after modeling has repetitively tried to do so.  I think that changes soon, but I do think that index gains some more clout after this winter.  As duely noted, one index/teleconnection does not make a forecast... 

The December QBO reading, plus how it is trending, coupled with the ENSO state has a good indication for a base value for the winter as a whole on US temp avg. With this December's QBO and ENSO state setup, only roughly 20% of the time produced a winter national avg of BN. If we had been in a La Nina with the same setup, that pct jumped to a more neutral state (50% of the time produced a BN avg). To me its why each Nino/Nina is a different animal, they react differently each time depending on the QBO combo. Once you have the base state as a nation, then a winter forecast can start adding in all the other indices based off that %. To override the warm state combo, we needed the other ones to be moderate values and working in unison (since weak values would only tend to get us to near normal with the QBO/ENSO combo). I completely agree with John, the Pacific is our driver, not just here but as a nation as a whole. My order of weight is QBO/ENSO, EPO, PNA, AO, MJO, NAO..from most weight to least (only caveat is the MJO, depends on amplification. Some data suggests its influence falls off if it in a low state closer to the COD and easier to overcome the warm phases). The whole setup is like a recipe, takes all the ingredients combined to get an outcome.

There's a small window on the weeklies, but we need the PNA to look like the ensembles and nothing near with the control shows (if control is right, the cold that comes down will go west). Outside of that window, it's almost time to look toward severe season.

Just my thoughts, but after looking at everything from back in to the beginning of winter and the current weeklies...im not too enthused about what's left of winter (think we need a lot of help). In December we had a nigative/rising QBO which made an argument for slightly AN temps, once you factor in it was occurring during a weak Nino, the odds increased of an AN winter (which we began that way with the late Dec/early Jan warmth. The start split was our saving grace, once the effects of it wear off (and no other splits in the future), we lose that influence. To offset the Dec rising neg QBO,  we need the AO/NAO/EPO all three to go neg (1 or 2 of those neg won't work so well). Looking at the weeklies for all 3, while we have a weak neg AO/NAO, the EPO turns positive  (at times mod +) starting mid month (sooner on the control). A good example is currently..AO dropping, NAO dropping, but EPO shooting back to neutral....even with historical cold just to the north, we go AN. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I think we need a lot of help starting mid month for winter lovers (based off current modeled teleconnections). 

Amounts varied from what I have seen here..most got 1-1.5, a few spots closer to 2.5-3. Enough for some kids to use plastic sleds.

Starting to think Carver is using his secondary low mojo from the other day on the models lol

Kuchera for the ICON would be crazy. ICON is usually on the conservative side when compared to other models...def got me more interested 

Only possible fly in the ointment for early week is how quickly can the front get off the plateau...mid tn looks to be in a great spot.

6z GFS looks good for entire state, suspect some mixing issues in east tn valley 

Yesterday at 12z:

Euro is slowly shifting and clustering the low further south. Cluster has went from Buffalo to Dc in past 24 hrs, something to keep and eye on.

12z CMC took the southern piece to the gulf, but was to far off the east coast with it, instead giving E. NC a decent snow.

To go along with Carvers post about a if a southern piece of energy happened to make it into the gulf along the arctic front, the Euro has that piece but takes it across the upper south instead of the gulf (it's what lays down the snowfall along the front)...E3 on the GEFS shows what "could" happen if that piece somehow formed in the gulf along the front. 

The extreme cold coming to the east correlates well with the EPO crashing. -EPO can override a +AO, if you can get both to crash together then insane outputs are possible on modeling, setting up cross polar flow. Right now the cold on the modeling is way more believable going off the indices, than what was shown the other day.