Fall/Winter '21-'22 General Obs

[John1122]

For some reason these really cold days always seem to have a few snow showers as we get towards sunset. 

[Silas Lang]

Yeah, was kind of surprised. Just drove to Lowe's on Clinton highway and straight up flizzard. Dusting in spots. 

[Wurbus]

Yeah. I had a straight flizzard for about an hour. Wound up with a dusting on everything but the roads.

[Shocker0]

Seemed a lot colder than predicted last night here. It was 17 at midnight and got all the way down to 6 by around 3am, which ended up being the low. At 7am it was 8 degrees and has warmed up to 32 now.

[nrgjeff]

Nature is trolling me after a warm headed post earlier in the week. @Carvers Gap see above, lol!

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, nrgjeff said:

Nature is trolling me after a warm headed post earlier in the week. @Carvers Gap see above, lol!

All I know is I couldn't feel my fingers after running this morning.  It is 37 out there right now and it feels like a heat wave! 

[John1122]

Sitting at 31 degrees right now. A good 13-20 degrees cooler than the rest of the area outside of Middlesboro. Some reason there's just a cold pocket hanging on here. My snow survived another day in the shady spots that face North and East. So it will survive at least part of tomorrow too. 

[Silas Lang]

14 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Sitting at 31 degrees right now. A good 13-20 degrees cooler than the rest of the area outside of Middlesboro. Some reason there's just a cold pocket hanging on here. My snow survived another day in the shady spots that face North and East. So it will survive at least part of tomorrow too. 

Weird temps here. My personal station at home reads at 33. Took a peek on wunderground and there are stations in the low 30s to the mid 40s all in Knox county. Can temps really vary that much? Cold pockets? Pretty wild. 

[John1122]

2 minutes ago, Silas Lang said:

Weird temps here. My personal station at home reads at 33. Took a peek on wunderground and there are stations in the low 30s to the mid 40s all in Knox county. Can temps really vary that much? Cold pockets? Pretty wild. 

It was 47 at TYS when I posted that, 44 at Tri, 43 at Crossville and 53 at Chattanooga. 32 in Middlesboro and Jacksboro. 

[Silas Lang]

6 minutes ago, John1122 said:

It was 47 at TYS when I posted that, 44 at Tri, 43 at Crossville and 53 at Chattanooga. 32 in Middlesboro and Jacksboro. 

You can zoom in around various counties in East TN right now and see a ton of variation. 

[Math/Met]

Camp Creek has recorded a gust around 58mph so far. The HRRR suggests it could go a little higher later this afternoon and evening. The flow gets a little stronger over the mountains, and the atmosphere generally becomes more conducive for mountain waves in the evening versus daytime.

[Math/Met]

Winds did pick up again late this afternoon before the stronger winds at 850mb pulled away. The peak gust today was 61mph. I normally wouldn't even bother with mentioning a 61mph gust at Camp Creek, but it's been awhile since there's been a wind event.

Tomorrow is tricky from a forecast standpoint. The LLJ is projected to be much closer to the mountains and strong tomorrow afternoon. The 3km NAM has 850mb winds 65+knots in parts of EAST TN. The problem is the orientation of the flow. It is close to being too much of a SW direction. You don't need 850mb winds to be SE for mountain wave events. In fact, most events have 850mb flow from due south or slightly SSW (winds below mountain tops have to be southeasterly to establish orthogonal flow). However, the 850mb winds tomorrow could be slightly outside of that threshold. It will be very close. The wind energy is certainly there for High Wind Warning type situation, IF the 850mb flow isn't too much from the SW. It is really close as currently modeled.

 

[John1122]

8 minutes ago, Math/Met said:

Winds did pick up again late this afternoon before the stronger winds at 850mb pulled away. The peak gust today was 61mph. I normally wouldn't even bother with mentioning a 61mph gust at Camp Creek, but it's been awhile since there's been a wind event.

Tomorrow is tricky from a forecast standpoint. The LLJ is projected to be much closer to the mountains and strong tomorrow afternoon. The 3km NAM has 850mb winds 65+knots in parts of EAST TN. The problem is the orientation of the flow. It is close to being too much of a SW direction. You don't need 850mb winds to be SE for mountain wave events. In fact, most events have 850mb flow from due south or slightly SSW (winds below mountain tops have to be southeasterly to establish orthogonal flow). However, the 850mb winds tomorrow could be slightly outside of that threshold. It will be very close. The wind energy is certainly there for High Wind Warning type situation, IF the 850mb flow isn't too much from the SW. It is really close as currently modeled.

 

Does Camp Creek have usually high winds outside of mountain wave events? I often wonder if it's one of the windiest places in the lower 48. 

[Math/Met]

39 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Does Camp Creek have usually high winds outside of mountain wave events? I often wonder if it's one of the windiest places in the lower 48. 

There are definitely breezy days outside of the true mountain wave events...anytime the flow is off the mountains. But it's not constantly windy there. They actually put in a temporary 135ft wind tower over a decade ago to study the potential for wind energy. Nothing ever came from that. 

Camp Creek gets all the attention because of the NOAA wind tower, but all of southern Greene County is very windy. That whole area is perfectly positioned at the base of the mountains with the French Broad Valley on the other side helping to funnel the southeasterly winds. South Greene HS is not in the Camp Creek community, and that school has been damaged several times by mountain wave winds. As far southwest in the county as the St. James community has really strong winds too. 

[Math/Met]

Winds have been kept in check so far at CC with the area of rain moving through. That might actually contribute to more favorable conditions for mountain waves (more stable due to precip) this afternoon and evening as the LLJ strengthens and with a break in precip. There seems to be a window today when things could really get going. I think MRX issuing the High Wind Warning was the right call.

[nrgjeff]

With all the rain softening soil, even a marginal mountain wave event will damage trees. I concur with Matt.

[Math/Met]

Cove Mountain recorded a 74mph gust.

I saw one gust at 64.4mph on a weather station in Camp Creek.

That isn't overly impressive for either location but worth mentioning.

Edit: Just found a 76.7mph gust at Camp Creek on another personal weather station. 

[Carvers Gap]

We had light snow last night for about an hour and flurries again this morning.  We had a ton of rain prior to that.  Streams are full.  January finished AN for rainfall here.  Feb has a chance to be AN as well with the past couple of days of rain(2.08”) now already in the books.  Good start for precip here at TRI.  

[Icy Hot]

Beautiful sunny day. Wind makes it feel much colder than 47. Noticed lots of ice crystals in the shade. The ground is still quite cold. 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Sleet in Oneida/ Big South Fork area. 

[John1122]

It was cloudy and around 44 when I left the house at 1 for Chattanooga, it's 60 and mostly sunny here in Hixson now. 

[jaxjagman]

we got some flakes flying around,its 29 now around here

[Holston_River_Rambler]

So de we think much of this will hold together?

Looks like High Knob is at least going to get a couple of inches tonight.

HRRR tries to kill it off, but I don't think that will happen. Now it may not make it to teh ground, but I think the radar returns will hold together:

Notice (Tri Cities folks) that there is also some weird 181 or 26 or whatever it is now band that shows up. It literally looks like it starts as some lift over the Eastman Bubble and then follows someone to JC. I'll be asleep, but will be interested to see if that verifies on radar overnight. maybe it is the ultra rare Bays Mountain point leeside low? 

JiC index may be in its COD, but it is still in the good phases 8/1 and we also we have the all important No One Cares Anymore (NOCA) index going for this to overperform tonight. Level of public and even weenie interest in any given event are like the SOI. We've dropped to -31.23 for this event. 

 

 

[jaxjagman]

14 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

So de we think much of this will hold together?

Looks like High Knob is at least going to get a couple of inches tonight.

HRRR tries to kill it off, but I don't think that will happen. Now it may not make it to teh ground, but I think the radar returns will hold together:

Notice (Tri Cities folks) that there is also some weird 181 or 26 or whatever it is now band that shows up. It literally looks like it starts as some lift over the Eastman Bubble and then follows someone to JC. I'll be asleep, but will be interested to see if that verifies on radar overnight. maybe it is the ultra rare Bays Mountain point leeside low? 

JiC index may be in its COD, but we have the all important No One Cares Anymore (NOCA) index going for this to overperfrom tonight. 

 

 

Maybe yall will do something and see a bit more,our dp's show alot of dry air so what the radar shows is nothing but virga mostly

[Silas Lang]

1 hour ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

So de we think much of this will hold together?

Looks like High Knob is at least going to get a couple of inches tonight.

HRRR tries to kill it off, but I don't think that will happen. Now it may not make it to teh ground, but I think the radar returns will hold together:

Notice (Tri Cities folks) that there is also some weird 181 or 26 or whatever it is now band that shows up. It literally looks like it starts as some lift over the Eastman Bubble and then follows someone to JC. I'll be asleep, but will be interested to see if that verifies on radar overnight. maybe it is the ultra rare Bays Mountain point leeside low? 

JiC index may be in its COD, but it is still in the good phases 8/1 and we also we have the all important No One Cares Anymore (NOCA) index going for this to overperform tonight. Level of public and even weenie interest in any given event are like the SOI. We've dropped to -31.23 for this event. 

 

 

I appreciate this post. And LOL at the last part. On the NOCA, yeah, not feeling too interested in winter for the foreseeable future due how things have been trending. I do like that about this forum; not a whole lot of cliff diving. We all just tend to quietly walk away. 

Anyway could feel the front blowing in today as it got cooler. Sitting at 40 here now. 

[John1122]

Reports from the home front of a decent snow shower rolling through. Around 45 here in Hixon. 

[John1122]

Still pretty decent snow going on back home. Looks like it's affecting traffic on 75 at this point. Been good returns for the last two hours or so on radar.  The JiC index strikes again. 

[John1122]

Not sure if Holston is awake but it looks like it's in his area as well. 

[John1122]

Always like to save these to look back on later. Looks like it's coming down decently down in LaFollette. 

[John1122]

No one awake back home to talk to, but looking at a Webcam from LaFollette there appears to be about an inch on non-paved surfaces. Snow appears moderate. It's been rolling over the same area on radar for hours. I hate missing snow back home.