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Tennessee is ranked above Kansas this week! KU has played a couple dreadful road games. Tennessee really handled Alabama. Yeah it was at home, but the Vols would have smoked them on the road playing that well. Kentucky shows some high-power offense like we have not seen in a few years. Defense is TBD. Auburn could also make a statement in the SEC. Some of the best weeks of the year are upon us. Time to dig into the heart of college conference basketball season!

Looks like a mild two or three weeks. Two weeks straight warm is tough to do this time of year. Perhaps a pair of 5-7 day warm periods with a cool sandwiched in between. High latitude ridging has sloshed back and fourth between Greenland and Scandanavia on a 4-6 week cycle since Thanksgiving. We'd be due for another cold period the back half of February. Cold wouldn't have the punch after 15 Feb. However it could get cold enough for winter precip. Honestly I could use the break now. Enjoy some Conference college basketball as we dig into the heart of the conference season.

Last visit and post for the night. @Chattownsnow and @Uncle Nasty I think the chart above from @TellicoWx eases the Chattanooga anxiety a little bit. We should be able to avoid a Dallas Cowboys style melt-down. I'll feel better when I see snow falling. Warm air is hanging tough in KCHA but we're always the last to cool off. Already snowing in Knoxville. LOL Chatty. Back to the game!

No I think you're OK. In fact that forecast is so nutty that I should feel better down here too. Cynicism aside, this snow event should work out. Pattern recognition is that the reinforcing Arctic front will anchor the cold. Isentropic lift with mid-level front is near ideal. NAM has its strengths with robust waves, but this isn't that. I may eat my words, but I think everything will work out. PS the Paul Barys post shows up now. Yeah that is about what I'm thinking locally. Time to relax for a bit. I'll be back later.

KCHA Dew is 28. It should fall as the reinforcing front settles in over the Plateau. CAA is fighting downslope right now too, see the dry bulb 44. Both should improve at dark and as the cold air settles in over the Plateau. That said, this is Chattanooga. We have suffered many instances when what looked like a good wet bulb setup failed. We'll find out a lot this evening when precip starts falling enough to impact the low-level profiles. Rather than going neurotic in Chatty, I'm gonna watch this football game for a while. At least until half-time. Unless I check at the next commercial, lol! What did Paul say? Is it gonna piss me off or make me happy?

Beginning of precip will provide much needed information in Chattanooga. See were our wet bulb and dry bulb go. I'm pouring a drink. Will we toast in happiness or rage drink?

Chattanooga is going neurotic which is understandable. We suffer severe snow choke trauma. High-res models refuse to drop the front like the Globals. Could be initialization. KCHA was 45 at 18Z. Dew of upper 20s cuts it close on the wet-bulb. I think what's happening is the usual daytime front (reinforcing shot) CAA struggles to overcome downslope off Plateau. Chatty just needs the cold air to settle in tonight despite clouds. I believe it was Feb 2015 when a lovely isentropic setup came in from Alabama. It over-achieved. IIRC 2014 was a bowling ball. 2020 definitely was a bowling ball - more like a quidditch ball. The last cold air in place for KCHA was 2015. So, Chattanooga will either return to glory or choke on our tears. Rapid Refresh F-bomb Sh-curse

Some downslope warming is possible on the front side of the system. However I don't think it'd be a deal killer. Maybe cut rates for a couple hours. If it even happens, start snowing, ease up, then get back at it second half. Kind of like Tennessee basketball, ha! Otherwise, box to wire snow.

NAM seems a little off this setup. We got the gentle isentropic upglide we all been wishing for since 2015. Energy for our system is just getting onshore in the Pac NW. Looks like the 18Z NAM is a little south (John, Carvers posts above) and the NAM will get more of the Pac NW wave on the 00Z run. Hopefully the NAM will settle in with the Globals. I'm cautiously optimist about Chattanooga. Cold air should be in place. A brief mix is possible due to low level temps, but this feels like an all snow event. Energy sliding up from the Deep South with isentropic lift is hard for even KCHA to screw up. Fingers crossed Little concern elsewhere. Looks like a gem coming for much of us!

Winter Storm Watch SOP allows up to 48 hours out. They're using all of it! 3-8 inches on a Day 3 forecast in the South. Though the Mid South would be the place to forecast it. Farther east I'm not particularly concerned about the NAM 60-84 hours. That far out the Globals should still offer greater value. I'm always concerned about Chattanooga, but not because of the NAM.

Charts above are how to get proper snow across the entire Tennessee Valley including southeast Tenn. Take a break tonight for SEC basketball action. Tennessee leads off early. Georgia and Ole' Miss are both getting points at home. Kansas is on too, along with other Big 12.

China is still cold, the surface high has settled in, and China wx/precip has quieted down. AN snow remains under clearing skies. US MIdwest has some AN snow. Otherwise the hemisphere is BN. Surface press is below. I see hurry up and wait on the next big cold push into the US. The seasonable cold South mild North should continue until then. Just with no really cold North source it's tough to be cold enough for anything good. See KCHA cold rain this am.

Crossville. Always. no matter what you're chasing. Snow. Tornadoes. Earthquakes? Just anything. Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We were in warm Puerto Rico. Kids had fun. We had sun. I miss the bright green landscape down there.

Molten lava is bad for snow, haha! Volcano is a fountain kind, not the blow crap into the stratosphere kind. Probably no impact either way. Getting back to stress-free snow from the main pinned thread. Southeast Tenn had a fairly obvious one in 2015 I think Feb. Cold air was in place and moisture eased in from Alabama. Since then it's all blood sweat and tears - mostly tears.

Basketball metaphors are how to wake me from a coma. Asia cold is in full swing right now. China and both Koreas snow cover is much above normal. Nasty Siberian airmass is over China. High press is very robust. Nothing of note over North Ameria at this time. However some models at least jostle the Strato PV. This would be a case of working bottom up. We would look for the Urals / Scandanavia high press (esp 500 mb ridge not shown) to retrograde toward Greenland. We'll see.

I'll take cold rain for $400. Actually there's potential. We got a ton of family stuff this weekend, so my interest is zero. Cold season South.

Day two of LOW overcast and I already want to hibernate. The next few days look like crap too.

GFS and ECMWF both have severe Sunday Dec. 10. Normally that'd fall apart. However it's family nut-buster, um I mean Nutcraker weekend; so of course, I'll miss visible tornadoes in the South. I should have a better attitude after the big KU win over UConn. However it's LOW overcast day 2 in a row and I'm salty.

Those trends are helpful. Unfortunately the IOD is going the other way on us. I expect many more crappy cold rain days like today.

CNN article looks more like a tighter PV. Climate change calls for a looser one. CNN

Looks mild until Christmas. Let's hope the cold is not 2022 style at Christmas. I'm dreaming white - not (rolling) blackout, ha! Pressure and Heights over the Arctic and Siberia are a warm signal for a few weeks now. Northern Hemisphere snow cover is too (Rutgers charts). Slight AN Mongolia to Manchuria, but Kazakstan and Canada are meh. If all else fails I have my alternate lyrics for Christmas in Dixie by Alabama and others. Christmas in Dixie, tornadoes in the pines.

Yeah I had to pinch myself. That really happened?

Good morning everyone. @PowellVolz I know cancer is scary and never routine. Sounds like they caught it early which is good. Thinking of you guys and praying for successful treatment. No praying emoji? Seriously AmWx! In lighter news Tennessee and Kansas play at 2:30 Eastern today. That's pretty early out in Hawaii. Guess they can be friends and go to the beach later! I was hoping to meet in the Maui Final, not 3rd place game. Should still be fun. If KU plays as soft as we did vs MQT then UT should win. Tennesse put up a better fight but that Purdue big is impossible.

Monday November 20 is Outlooked. If the warm sector doesn't get a lot of rain, it has potential. SPC isn't too excited about instability, but it's shear season. Speed and turning from 850 mb to 500 by is quite impressive. Mid levels are not THAT warm. Any sunshine in the warm sector should achieve what little CAPE is required this time of year. Yes I'm a few days earlier than I normally post. But the weather has been quiet, the Champions Classic has been played, and I really need a new distraction right now.

Champions Classic was indeed a classic as usual. Kansas and Tennessee have both started seasons well. We might meet in Maui!