Historic Christmas Cold & maybe snow?! Dec 23rd-30th

[PowellVolz]

Am I missing something? They say "cold not seen in decades." We've been to -4 at least 3 times within the last 10 years in NETN. Are they just not looking at historical data anymore?

My memory is terrible but was it 2010/11 when we had multiple nights in Knoxville below zero. I believe that season was very active also with one big overrunning event and multiple small systems in a 3 week span starting right after Christmas. Or am I thinking of another year?


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[Carvers Gap]

1 minute ago, Daniel Boone said:

I hadn't been thinking clear on this upcoming cold and thought was coldest since feb 96 but, then I remembered feb 20 2015. -16 Jonesville. - 20 Pennington gap morning lows. I recorded a high of 12.

'14-15 is the snowiest I have ever seen my area of the TRI - and that includes some great winters of the 80s and 90s.  From mid January to the end of February it just snowed and snowed.  There were school systems with had 10+ days banked which ran out of days, and these weren't systems which just called out at the drop of a hat.  I think that is one winter where my area was actually snowier than John's.

[Carvers Gap]

4 minutes ago, PowellVolz said:

My memory is terrible but was it 2010/11 when we had multiple nights in Knoxville below zero. I believe that season was very active also with one big overrunning event and multiple small systems in a 3 week span starting right after Christmas. Or am I thinking of another year?


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10-11 was a great winter.  This winter is so far running quite parallel to that one.  

[PowellVolz]

10-11 was a great winter.  This winter is so far running quite parallel to that one.  

Seems like a couple of years later we had another very cold January but the pattern reloaded in February and we had multiple winter systems over a two week period.


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[Jed33]

11 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

'14-15 is the snowiest I have ever seen my area of the TRI - and that includes some great winters of the 80s and 90s.  From mid January to the end of February it just snowed and snowed.  There were school systems with had 10+ days banked which ran out of days, and these weren't systems which just called out at the drop of a hat.  I think that is one winter where my area was actually snowier than John's.

February of 2015 had me crying uncle and I don’t cry uncle easily! There was snow on the ground for nearly the entire month. It started off with a clipper on steroids and then it seemed like we had snow after snow about every 2-4 days. Several of which were pretty good snows! The thing that got me the most was the inability to work. I’m in pest control, and there’s just not a lot of opportunities to say the least when it gets like that.

[PowellVolz]

February of 2015 had me crying uncle and I don’t cry uncle easily! There was snow on the ground for nearly the entire month. It started off with a clipper on steroids and then it seemed like we had snow after snow about every 2-4 days. Several of which were pretty good snows! The thing that got me the most was the inability to work. I’m in pest control, and there’s just not a lot of opportunities to say the least when it gets like that.

That might be the February I’m remembering. Did we have like a 3 day overrunning event where we had heavy snow to sleet and freezing rain back to snow? Seems like I remember getting several inches of sleet. I was cleaning my gutters out every day. I was the only one doing that in my subdivision and several houses lost their gutters. Was that also the inverted trough up the valley 5” surprise year?

.t

[ShawnEastTN]

January 2014 had crazy cold too, I had to travel to Michigan to a hospital for a family member and that was the winter when every media outlet began saying "Polar Votex" in relation to the cold in an almost doomsday type term really talking it up. The day I left Michigan for the drive back to Tennessee it was -15 air temp in Detroit with howling winds and blowing snow windchill in the 30 to 40 below zero range. Got home in Tennessee that night and it was -1 air temp in Knoxville.

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[fountainguy97]

The hrrr is simply jaw dropping. Most places lose 20-30 degrees in a single hour.

[fountainguy97]

 

 

[Jed33]

59 minutes ago, PowellVolz said:

That might be the February I’m remembering. Did we have like a 3 day overrunning event where we had heavy snow to sleet and freezing rain back to snow? Seems like I remember getting several inches of sleet. I was cleaning my gutters out every day. I was the only one doing that in my subdivision and several houses lost their gutters. Was that also the inverted trough up the valley 5” surprise year?

.t

For sure the 5” valley surprise. It was supposed to snow maybe 1/2in and change over to rain due to a warm nose up the valley. The thing is, a cold pool of air developed due to dynamic cooling and CAA, and somehow the warmth got shunted to Johnson City and the mountains. The mountains warmed up to almost 50 degrees and I think even JC was like 47 or so, but to the west it was all snow. Never switched over to rain. Some areas in Hancock Co TN and Lee Co VA had over a foot or more of snow. 
 

Never fully understood, even to this day the miracle that happened with that event. Usually the mountains get the snow and somehow they got the shaft and the valley got the goods! I guess it was just meant to be is all I can say. 

[Jed33]

11 minutes ago, fountainguy97 said:

The hrrr is simply jaw dropping. Most places lose 20-30 degrees in a single hour.

That is the most extreme model I’ve seen. I thought the HRRR had a warm bias? It’s got everyone solidly below zero at 7AM friday

[PowellVolz]

For sure the 5” valley surprise. It was supposed to snow maybe 1/2in and change over to rain due to a warm nose up the valley. The thing is, a cold pool of air developed due to dynamic cooling and CAA, and somehow the warmth got shunted to Johnson City and the mountains. The mountains warmed up to almost 50 degrees and I think even JC was like 47 or so, but to the west it was all snow. Never switched over to rain. Some areas in Hancock Co TN and Lee Co VA had over a foot or more of snow. 
 
Never fully understood, even to this day the miracle that happened with that event. Usually the mountains get the snow and somehow they got the shaft and the valley got the goods! I guess it was just meant to be is all I can say. 

I’m in Halls and we never got warmer than 29. The high was supposed to be pushing 40. I remember Ober Gatlinburg was mid 40’s with rain, I was mid 20’s with heavy snow. Ended up with about 8” total.


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[Buckethead]

 
 

A 26° drop in 3 minutes. Wow.

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[TellicoWx]

27 minutes ago, fountainguy97 said:

The hrrr is simply jaw dropping. Most places lose 20-30 degrees in a single hour.

This is more worrisome to me than any of the snow. When MRX talks about historic, this is what they are referring to imo. Yeah it gets below zero plenty times in the past several years, but that's with snow pack and radiational cooling on light winds. Not so common to go below zero plus 20-30 mph with gusts up to 50.

[Carvers Gap]

Kind of sneaky, but ZR is now showing up for tomorrow AM in eastern Sullivan, Unicoi, eastern Washington, and Johnson counties of TN.  SW VA also has some showing up as well.  It isn't anything huge, but might be a pain in the you know what to drive on ~0.03 to 0.1.

edit:  W NC is also showing this and probably has the highest likelihood of problems.

[BlunderStorm]

1 hour ago, PowellVolz said:

 

Was it this one? "Octavia" as the WC dubbed it was the most snow in a day I can remember up my way. 16 inches! I believe on Feb 16th of 2015.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kf3uvQ71W_A/VOKJlBhTAfI/AAAAAAAAAhI/401QH79ixiQ/s1600/radar.jpg

[Carvers Gap]

1 minute ago, TellicoWx said:

This is more worrisome to me than any of the snow. When MRX talks about historic, this is what they are referring to imo. Yeah it gets below zero plenty times in the past several years, but that's with snow pack and radiational cooling on light winds. Not so common to go below zero plus 20-30 mph with gusts up to 50.

Good point.  Yeah, this is tropical storm force winds followed by bitterly cold temps.  

[Scottie16]

 

[John1122]

MRX has been referring to this as December cold not seen in decades. 2014 and 2015 had -10s across a lot of the area. But that was Jan and Feb. 

[Knoxtron]

10 minutes ago, Scottie16 said:

 

For a second there I thought I was looking at a snow depth map lol

[John1122]

I think a lot of models are slowing the cold up as it hits the western Plateau, just enough for the moisture to race away from the front.

[Scottie16]

Just now, John1122 said:

I think a lot of models are slowing the cold up as it hits the western Plateau, just enough for the moisture to race away from the front.

Seeing those temperatures drop in Montana brings hope that they won’t. 

[ShawnEastTN]

I think a lot of models are slowing the cold up as it hits the western Plateau, just enough for the moisture to race away from the front.

Always the issue, holding out hope that this fropa is so strong that it'll be as if there is no terrain impediment with the plateau. Can't recall an analog likely due to how infrequently an arctic front of this caliber comes through. Wish I had an analog to point to in regard to plateau not slowing the cold, hoping and even expecting it'll bulldoze its way through faster than pretty much all events in recent memory.

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[Carvers Gap]

Sheridan, WY...I am noticing many roads in Wyoming are getting closed as we speak.

[Daniel Boone]

3 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

'14-15 is the snowiest I have ever seen my area of the TRI - and that includes some great winters of the 80s and 90s.  From mid January to the end of February it just snowed and snowed.  There were school systems with had 10+ days banked which ran out of days, and these weren't systems which just called out at the drop of a hat.  I think that is one winter where my area was actually snowier than John's.

Yep, sure was here too brother. 37" for the Month in Pennington gap. 33.4" in Jonesville. Northern Lee and Wise County , 50+ . Unreal ! 

[Carvers Gap]

12z Euro trended south.  Nice hit from the Plateau westward and north of I-40. 

[dwagner88]

2 hours ago, TellicoWx said:

This is more worrisome to me than any of the snow. When MRX talks about historic, this is what they are referring to imo. Yeah it gets below zero plenty times in the past several years, but that's with snow pack and radiational cooling on light winds. Not so common to go below zero plus 20-30 mph with gusts up to 50.

If it happens, this will be the first time KCHA has been below zero in my lifetime. I am 34.

[John1122]

The craziest thing to me is my high is predicted to be 6 Friday for the daytime, and 14 for Saturday but nothing below 0. Rare to get daytime highs in the single numbers and stay above 0.

[BlunderStorm]

I'm excited for the new extreme analog will get from this event should it ever come again in the next few decades. This is the ultimate "cold crashing into the valley" scenario.

[TellicoWx]

State of Emergencys going up in KY and NC..expect others will follow suit in the south