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Freeze to Thaw, Winter Wx, Feb. 20th-21st, 2015


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I have 9" of snow on the ground. With heavy rain coming in...I am afraid we will all have more pics to share of Nature's might. What a wild WX week. Feel free to comment on the Euro in the Fab Feb thread. I know a -PNA is about to force the trough to the middle of the country. That could be good as we would have a small SER to turn storms up the coast. Or it could just get temps back to normal. I thought the Euro was close on several occasions.

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I don't know how it managed to stay snow in the narrow corridor from Knoxville basically up I81 and yet turned to sleet and ZR in the plateau. I get the smokies and the foothills, but how it managed here, I just don't know. I would like to know though, if anyone can explain. At any rate, I finished around 12:00 with about 4.25in of snow. We really haven't had much other precip at all since it quit. Just a small sleet shower or ZR, and now, I guess rain, as I'm at 33 now. Basically, it snowed the hardest it could and quit precip during the day for is to enjoy it till just a few mins ago when we came in. I see it is now raining. It could all melt now, but we had a blast sledding, tubing, building snowmen, snowball fights, and playing. Best snow of the year here for sure!

Closer to the Plateau and no downsloping. You were able to get a little lift which forced strong rates and kept the air column cold. Also, I sometimes wonder if the downslope(from the Smokies) doesn't push the cold air up along the Cumberland Plateau and create a little wedge from cold being pushed across the Valley from the Smokies by the downslope. This is about the only place where the microclimates of the Valley are discussed...mountains waves, downsloping, rain shadow, elevations, etc. This subforum has allowed for excellent questions like yours to be posed. Now, I hope we can get one or two more big events where more folks can get involved.

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That's some interesting thoughts carver! That would be cool to say the least if the downslope flow pushed the cold back across the valley to the west and up against the plateau. I definitely see how that could occur. That combined with the heavy rates would do the trick. I wish every winter could be like this for sure. I'd be like a kid in a candy store if we could repeat this week every winter!

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Even with the rain, roads are still pretty bad in west Knoxville when you get off the main routes. I've watched cars fail to get up the hill in my neighborhood in this slush. Driveways and parking lots will take awhile to clear.

couldn't imagine,our ice storm is holding up well still despite all the rain and temps in the 40's

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I did well with the snow this morning. Received 4-1/2 inches before it finally gave way to a brief period of freezing rain, then light rain. Speaking of which, the rain has really picked up here. Coming down hard. I'm starting to get concerned about flooding. It will not take long with these kind of returns:

 

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I think it has been amazing the sharp contrast of snow depth, south to north, across the Tri-cities, both for today's snow and the one on Monday. Johnson City only had a couple of inches with each event, and here in Kingsport, just 20 miles north, we had 4-6 each day. We had about 9 inches on the ground around noon today. It's easy to understand how areas like Big Stone get so  much more, with the elevation difference...by the way, Channel 5 was reporting 15 inches today, with 27 on the ground there...wow! I guess JC gets some of the downsloping effect, but that's quite a difference.

 

Great discussion on the cold air in the valley above...I agree with Carver, it's great to have a place to discuss our uniqueness that is the Tennessee Valley, especially the micro climates that show up between Knoxville and the TRI. Thanks to whoever had the idea to create our subforum!!!

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Another dock collapsed. This one at Norris dam. Campbell, Scott, Fentress and Cumberland County really took one on the chin with this event. Lots of power outages. There's 8 inches of muck ice on everything now. The weight of its incredible. Oh, it's also flooding moderately on all paved areas that are remotely flat because there's no where for runoff to go

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Drove from Oak Ridge to downtown Chattanooga today via 75. Drove in heavy rains there and back. Extensive tree damage along 75s, particularly between lenior city and sweetwater. In isolated sections of evergreens, more than 1 in 10 trees were uprooted and/or heavily damaged. Lots of fallen trees in the interstate medians and shoulders (some overhanging into the driving lanes)

 

When we left (at 2pm), all roads (back roads, pellissippi parkway, and parts of 40) were pretty bad with deep slush and flooding from hardin valley to loudon and decent from then on. Little snow accumulations in grass south of Philadelphia (other than missionairy ridge in Chattanooga which had about 3"!!) Left chattanooga to return to knoxville at 8 pm. No to very little snow visible on anything until about the athens exit. Did not encounter deep snow or snow on roadways until we reached knoxville again. Sure seems like there has been little melting at my house, even on the roads! Looks the same as when I left this morning!!

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That's some interesting thoughts carver! That would be cool to say the least if the downslope flow pushed the cold back across the valley to the west and up against the plateau. I definitely see how that could occur. That combined with the heavy rates would do the trick. I wish every winter could be like this for sure. I'd be like a kid in a candy store if we could repeat this week every winter!

Bingo. I drove from my place near the Chickamauga damn to my friends house (he go stuck trying to leave his house), which is right along the plateau in the valley north of Chattanooga and he was still at 32 degrees at 2:30 in the afternoon. My place was at 35 degrees. The radar even showed mixed precip still along the edge of the plateau at this point, While rain was falling all the way deep into Kentucky. This was a very cool storm from a meteorological stand point. I was amazed at how long freezing temps held on down here.

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Another dock collapsed. This one at Norris dam. Campbell, Scott, Fentress and Cumberland County really took one on the chin with this event. Lots of power outages. There's 8 inches of muck ice on everything now. The weight of its incredible. Oh, it's also flooding moderately on all paved areas that are remotely flat because there's no where for runoff to go

Friends of mine had their boats sunk at Sequoyah Marina on Norris....not good...

 

After realizing on Sunday that the rain was not going to do the job, my son and I got the shovels out and started hacking into the stuff on the driveway that stays shaded most of the day....two inches of basicaly ice with water logged slush on top. I am sore today!

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