Math/Met

Winds are starting to pick up along the mountains and foothills. There could be a significant wind event tonight in a few spots. The wind profile on models is more favorable now. I could see an upgrade to a high wind warning being warranted as the event gets going.

The link between meteorology and social/behavioral science is an interesting field of study. I'm certainly no expert on that. However, one of my grad school professors was interested in that field. If I remember correctly, the correlation between false alarms and people not responding to the next severe threat was pretty weak. For many people, they will either take watches and warnings seriously or not based on their own personal trust in the forecast(or belief in science in general). That trust is probably independent of any previous false alarms. I'm sure we've all heard people say "they never get it right". That statement is obviously false and they probably know that at some level, but you would never get those people to take shelter during a warning. They would probably need to visually confirm a tornado before they would seek shelter.

Just wanted to say congrats to TN fans. I knew today would be tough for UK. UT is a much better team than they showed the first game. As bad as UT played the first game, UK took it to another level of bad today. They were terrible today. Got to give UT credit though, they played with more energy and made it tough on kentucky to get anything going offensively. As a fan of good basketball, it's a shame that neither game was competitive. Bone was outstanding today. If he plays like that, UT should go a long way in the tournament.

Glad they did quality control and straightened that out. Are they saying 81mph was the peak gust today? Just wondering because it looked like there were legitimate gusts in the mid to upper 80's based on the plot. Not that it really matters at this point, just wondering if all recorded gusts were higher than actual winds.

I don’t want to post too much about the mountain wave event, but here is why I think the red data plots are incorrect. If you expand out to a 720 hour plot, you can see errors show up several times. The peak (green) is usually very accurate.

I haven't heard any major damage reports, but it looks like there are a lot of trees down in southern Greene County. WCYB Probably not the best idea to be standing there.

That’s unfortunate. It may end up being correct, but I would be VERY surprised. The near 90mph gusts seem legit. I have a full dataset for research purposes that goes back to 2008, and 123mph would be way above anything recorded there. I do think it’s possible for Camp Creek to gust over 100mph in mountain wave events. I’ve speculated that it was over 100mph in 2004, but there was no reliable data at that point.

https://oculus.atdd.noaa.gov/campcreek/

I think you are correct to ignore the red data on that chart. It is unreliable. The peak gust data (green) is probably accurate, so nearly 90mph.

About 30 minutes after posting that, Camp Creek switched to a SE wind and gusted to 53mph. It should continue to increase.

Everything still looks on track for a significant mountain wave wind event. It has taken awhile for conditions to become favorable. Even though VWP indicates 40kt SE winds at 4000ft, the cross barrier flow remains blocked. Camp Creek winds haven't really increased yet and aren't currently blowing from a SE direction. Conditions become much more favorable in the next few hours. HRRR is showing the enhancement right along the mountains and especially in the Camp Creek area by tomorrow morning. That's not the most reliable wind product, but it usually does a good job of showing areas of mountain wave enhancement (even if wind speed isn't accurate). The biggest question for me is how trees will hold up in areas with possible 75+ mph wind gusts and saturated soil.

Favorable conditions for mountain waves will be in place later tonight and especially tomorrow morning. MRX issued a High Wind Warning and mentioned the potential for downed trees due to saturated ground in the AFD. It could take a few hours for mountain waves to really get going tonight/tomorrow morning. Models show a very strong temperature inversion across the mountains later tonight and the 850mb flow has a bit for of an easterly component. So, it could take until early tomorrow morning to get the proper balance between cross barrier wind speed and stability (haven’t calculated the Froude number, just basing on past experience). The cross barrier flow could be partially blocked for part of the night and could prevent the downslope flow from being sustained. After the initial round of precip lifts north, the 850mb flow becomes more southerly and the temperature profile is more conducive. That’s when the conditions become very favorable for mountain waves. This could be a strong event, which will likely cause some problems with down trees along the mountains.

In addition to the flooding threat, there could also be a mountain wave event Tuesday night into Wednesday as a strong LLJ develops over the region with a favorable wind profile. With the saturated ground, these strong winds along the mountains could cause some problems as well.

JoMo, I don’t post here often, but it’s awesome to hear that you made it through the storm. It was apparent that the people on this board truly care, and we are all glad you’re safe.