Holston_River_Rambler

...STRATOSPHERIC POLAR VORTEX WATCH IS ISSUED IN FOR THE LAST HALF OF JANUARY * WHAT...GFS has honked harshly for significant warming at 10 mb for the past few runs. At 6z 1/1/23 it showed temperatures warming above 32 degrees over N. Siberia. No split was indicated, only a general stretching and weakening of the top of the vortex. There are however some indications of a connection between the blocking over central Canada at H5 and a higher geopotential heights at 50 mb in the medium range: * IMPACTS...Plan on hype from the usual suspects on wxtwitter and a potential for hazardous model mayhem in the upcoming weeks. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Remember a WATCH is issued when there are hints of a significant SPV disruption. The actual event has NOT happened yet and may not occur, but there have been enough model runs that I feel confident there is a higher than normal chance after mid month of significant stratospheric disruptions which COULD percolate to the CONUS 2 - 3 weeks after the event. High latitude blocking has already occurred this year and is ongoing, so there could be, IMO, a higher than usual potential for any SPV disruptions to more easily impact H5 patterns. But again this would not be until early to mid Feb, if it even happens.

Most of the ponds are just unfreezing up here in the plateau and as they do they are creating a cool/ eerie fog (depending on your perspective) that hangs just above the ground.

Got a some good shots of the valley from Mt Leconte today: Looking towards the Tri-Cities Looking towards Knoxville: Downsloping time lapse: Downslping drying rain out as it moved over Le Conte into the valley: Some ice sheets 6+ inches thick near the top:

@John1122 time to start looking at Mt Whitney and other Sierra Nevada forecasts, lol

Y’all are wanting to not just beat the dead horse but resurrect it lol. I was going to try and keep peace and let it go, but since the horse is getting shocked by those chest pads…. I’ll poke a little bit too and say that the -5 standard deviation EPO schmaybe had something to do with the cold and snow we just experienced. I’ll grant that the NAO helped aim it, but I don’t think we would have had such cold if the EPO hadn’t dislodged it.

Your storm is still there at 6z John. If we can get it to pop up for 5 or 6 more runs, that should be money for a nice cutter. This might be your storm Itryatgolf! To be more serious, the pattern the GFS is showing is conducive for this sort of an outcome, several waves pushing the boundary a bit further south each time at peak climo.

WRT the strat, there have definitely been some signs that it is under stress at the top, but nothing showing a split just yet. The mean on the GEFS shows the warming and displacement, but no sign of a split yet: I think this is tied to what Jason Furtado was tweeting yesterday. Here's the thread if anyone wants to read it: My take on what he is saying is that as waves at H5 get tossed up to the strat from eastern Siberia they can either be reflected back down over Canada or that can bring warming and weakening to the the SPV from 30mb on up. Much like how the upcoming pattern may or may not play out, we just don't know yet which of the two options is more likely. Here's ye olden 3D vortex. You can see some shear at the top from these heat fluxes, but that's about it:

Solid dusting up here in south central Morgan County

These flakes are beautiful little dendrites. I wish I had a camera for a more detailed pic:

No snow falling above 3000' with the clipper, but the otter pond was frozen solid enough to walk on:

Definitely looks healthy on radar:

Yep. Sheets floating down. Been a long while since I’ve seen that but it happened a few times when I was a kid. 96 for sure that I can remember right now.

Ice coming off the N Fork of the Holston: Cherokee lake effect on Bays Mt and Ft. Patrick Henry generating relatively warm water, while the winds blows its evaporate up Bays Mt: https://i.imgur.com/JrjT9Zy.mp4

I’m up here in Kingsport today and have a cool video of evaporation off of the Holston river as the wind blows the moisture up Bays Mt! well cool to me anyway lol

I think there’s some lake effect off of Cherokee with the wind trajectory up the valley.

From a friend in Oak Ridge:

Apparently TVA has started rolling blackouts.

Found a cool visualization of this cold front on Twitter:

Pixie dust type flakes and pouring with nothing on the radar. I wish it was daylight. I think we would have had blizzard conditions here for a few minutes.

Here is what I have. Sorry for having the camera turned up and down. I do be sleepy:

It's snowing pretty good right now. As I type heard a tree come down, lol. I have a youtube video processing with the snow and the wind. Will post when it is ready.

Same boat as you. Wind howling, a few flakes.

Winds are shifting up here in MoCo. More of a NW component now.

I think we just want to stay in the left exit region of the jet as long as possible. The front is doing a lot of the lift and the jet is enhancing it. I’m not sure how to tell what the jet stream looks like in real time in the situation though.

Looks like rain on the Cookeville webcam for now.