Carvers Gap

it used to be that spring snow IMBY was not uncommon, and that snow during late November and early December was very unusual. That has flipped since about December 2009. Winter finds a way to get going early in NE TN more times than not lately. We can have cold/rainy springs..... Also, I am thinking what I looked at was snow and not temps now that I think about it. Though, there is prob some correlation there. Snowier falls and early winters. Less snow springs.

Just looking at photos from Bristol, TN/VA, it looks like they go 2-4". We have a dusting IMBY. Upslope is not my game. Pretty good thump in eastern Sullivan though. They have been scoring all winter. RGEM with the score yet again. The GFS at very short range wasn't bad. Portions of extreme NE TN and SW VA have been hammered.

Just looking at the Euro Weeklies tonight...after a warmup during a TBD portion of December, it sure looks like March might be an extension of winter for the usual places which can have winter during March.

This seems to be a very common look around or just after 240. I am watching this time frame. The CMC and GFS have something similar. Possible reload after this rotates through. That is begging or a winter storm. Cold air supply is stellar and the SER should flex right into that.

18z GFS.....make stationary fronts fun again.

Also, next Sunday, ensembles and now the 18z GFS are picking up on a WAA system. Something to watch for NE TN and northern Cumberland Plateau folks.

This is pretty awesome. Want to watch the PDO flip? Watch the water right along the northern Canada and Alaska coast. Starts off below normal. The water in the GOA is above normal. Then watch as the water directly along the Alaska coast goes AN and the water west of it in the central Pacific - BN. That is a flip from a -PDO to a +PDO. Could be temporary or permanent. This is likely what is causing the EPO to lock in. That change matches the current cold shot almost perfectly. The atmosphere responded almost immediately. Link for PDO phase maps for reference...

Warmer patterns with cold lurking are not always bad.

I saw some data where late fall and early winter have gotten colder. Spring has gotten warmer. But until this cold pool loses its supply, could be a slog. Many March analogs are cold. This winter we are bucking the majority analogs though. I said up front this winter might not play nice. It has lived up to that. From the word go, this winter just seemed to have a different look on long range modeling. Not sure I can put my finger on exactly what…just seemed like it would buck the trends. All those warm weeklies looks have been can kicked almost 2-3 weeks so far.

Again, the big difference between this and other winters is our cold source is old-school legit. The other thing is the EPO seems to want to fire regardless of the MJO. That tells me the PDO has flipped or is flipping. The PDO will be in direct conflict with the MJO signal. That is going to wreck havoc on modeling. Don't think so. BN heights in Alaska with a ridge on the West Coast....that has not happened a lot recently. It can happen, but that isn't a recent staple. The playing field has changed....let's see if the surface responds. This is one of these deals where we could have severe one week and a winter storm the next.

Welcome to thread-the-needle time. That should last for about the next 4-6 weeks. The MJO is all over the place, and that fits with LR modeling - all over the place. North America is cold, folks. During previous winters, we would throw in the tall after this next cold shot. The problem with that is that any cutter can driver wickedly cold air all the way to the coast right now. Chinooks will be short lived. I kind of felt like this winter wasn't gonna be an easy call, and nothing looks easy about the next 4-6 weeks in terms of any kind of generalization. I don't think we will have a locked in cold pattern, but we may well have very sharp shots of cold air. If we can get a shortwave to interact with the northern stream(phase), the ingredients are on the table for a big storm. But....it will be thread the needle stuff where we will like depend on cold rushing into the backside of a storm.

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Reading on scannerfood that some ice has developed in the mountains with the onset of this rain. ZR has caused multiple wrecks. Wise, VA, has reported ice as maybe some areas in W NC.

I got about 25% of the RAP snow forecast last weekend. LOL. Maybe not even that. Looks like the RGEM though!