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March 3 High Wind and Severe potential


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That was some amazing wind but not what I was expecting.  Still was interesting to experience those type of gusts.  As for severe it was  the same story that has happened this winter.  A dud. Maybe this needs to be in the discussion of wx thread but it seems the more technology in models & forecasting these days has had the opposite effects.  It seems models are lost most of the time &  and forecast could not hit the side of a barn with a shotgun anymore. Just seems the wx is doing the opposite of what it used to do.  Maybe it’s just me but like today the hype only made more people desensitized to the SPC & outlooks. My wife works for the schools & it’s not pretty the backlash. 

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So did the line of storms outrun the high wind field? TBH, if that is the case, I'm glad they did and couldn't tap into it.  Like everyone else said above the wind field seemed to lag a couple of hours behind the storms and the strongest winds didn't really hit here until just after sunset. Everything has died off now though and it is chilly. We've reached the point where 41 feels downright cold. 

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2 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

So did the line of storms outrun the high wind field? TBH, if that is the case, I'm glad they did and couldn't tap into it.  Like everyone else said above the wind field seemed to lag a couple of hours behind the storms and the strongest winds didn't really hit here until just after sunset. Everything has died off now though and it is chilly. We've reached the point where 41 feels downright cold. 

That's weird because the wind hit on this side of the mountains before the storms hit. We had a ton of trees go down before the storms hit. About an hour ahead of the storms. Then the storms hit and all hell broke loose. Been without power for 15 hours now.

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2 minutes ago, Met1985 said:

That's weird because the wind hit on this side of the mountains before the storms hit. We had a ton of trees go down before the storms hit. About an hour ahead of the storms. Then the storms hit and all hell broke loose. Been without power for 15 hours now.

That's interesting (obviously not good for y'all). I wonder if ground friction held the winds back at our lower elevations? I wasn't up on the plateau yesterday afternoon so I can't say what we had up here.  

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4 minutes ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

That's interesting (obviously not good for y'all). I wonder if ground friction held the winds back at our lower elevations? I wasn't up on the plateau yesterday afternoon so I can't say what we had up here.  

Yeah im thinking maybe elevation made a big difference from top to bottom.... 

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Here's an interesting gif with two wundergound stations. One is near me in Morgan County (Plateau), the other is near Rockwood in Roane county (Valley). the plateau location is actually east of the valley location, but seemed to have higher winds earlier. 

giphy.gif

Storms rolled through between 2 and 3ish, it does look like the higher plateau elevations (even only the 800' between these two locations) made a big difference wrt the timing of the wind field.

Just eyeballing a location in Haywood county, it looks a lot more like the plateau graph, but with a second substantial uptick:

wGBdxSM.png

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Woah boy was that rough up on the Plateau. Recorded a 42 mph gust right after the main line passed, power went out after that so not sure how much stronger the wind got. 

 

Definitely windier following the front. What a strange day, started the day in a dense fog at 66° with heavy winds, got about 2 inches of rain leading to new rivers throuhout the forest, then the incredible winds...

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The wind 100% met MRX forecasts in western Sullivan County.  The worst of the wind came after the storms. 
Yeah we did actually have some strong gusts associated with winds mixing down during the quasi-linear event. I am certain we had gusts around 50 mph. But I have to admit, the winds that came several hours after with partly cloudy skies were more impressive. No surprise that there were more outages that followed last night. Looks like counties up in Kentucky got it worse than Tennessee however.
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The above likely happened with non-thunderstorm winds ahead of the line. That area was always the ahead of the line non-thunderstorm winds. More later. 

On 3/3/2023 at 10:57 AM, nrgjeff said:

Nashville is just a hair east of the 10% hatched, and I agree. Lines up best with daytime heating going into afternoon. Also the Plateau elevation gives it better access to inflow wind. I don't normally share from EM briefings, but it's basically an adjusted 10% which is public on SPC. Please don't re-share though...

image.png.6e09003cbb919f50fb6da48e9404eebd.png

 

On 3/3/2023 at 11:26 AM, kayman said:

I don't know about all that being accurate. Nashville is smack dab in the center of the 10% significant hatched in areas that came out in the past hour from the SPC. Louisville and Bowling Green are there too.  The wind shear profiles and helocity values are going up right now and the storm bands are still at least an hour west of Greater Nashville. The lines are starting to break up into individual storms that are becoming more discrete. 

Screenshot_20230303_112503_Chrome.jpg

This is a good example of the importance of communication. Could I have been more clear? I refer to Nashville Forecasters.
Kayman refers to the City of Nashville. While I could have written more clearly, context clues are somewhat evident. Also it's common to refer to NWS offices just by their location. 

In the end despite parameters, OHX Forecasters and I were more correct than not. There is more to it than parameters. Note the minimum in Middle Tennessee compared to AL/GA. East Tenn is concentrated southeast Tenn. Still the bias east that OHX highlighted in red on the chart had some validity. By late morning it was apparent that the diurnal intensity max was going to be east. Pattern recognition is vital to add value over parameters and models. 

image.png.c58f590bd648d9d92976a83a2fb3ecc0.png

Moving along to the non-thunderstorm wind. It was impressive. Except for the Mountains, where we had the strong south winds through and below passes ahead of the line of storms/front, most of the strongest winds were behind the line. 

Once again pattern recognition says behind the line of storms, where the mixing is maximized behind the dry line. I never got the ahead of the line wording from some EM briefings (except for Mountains). Yes, it was breezy ahead of the line. However the strongest winds behind the line always seemed self-evident to me. Could be the advantage of Great Plains experience. Friday was unusual for here, but it is somewhat common in the Plains. 

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The above likely happened with non-thunderstorm winds ahead of the line. That area was always the ahead of the line non-thunderstorm winds. More later. 
This is a good example of the importance of communication. Could I have been more clear? I refer to Nashville Forecasters.
Kayman refers to the City of Nashville. While I could have written more clearly, context clues are somewhat evident. Also it's common to refer to NWS offices just by their location. 
In the end despite parameters, OHX Forecasters and I were more correct than not. There is more to it than parameters. Note the minimum in Middle Tennessee compared to AL/GA. East Tenn is concentrated southeast Tenn. Still the bias east that OHX highlighted in red on the chart had some validity. By late morning it was apparent that the diurnal intensity max was going to be east. Pattern recognition is vital to add value over parameters and models. 

image.png.c58f590bd648d9d92976a83a2fb3ecc0.png
Moving along to the non-thunderstorm wind. It was impressive. Except for the Mountains, where we had the strong south winds through and below passes ahead of the line of storms/front, most of the strongest winds were behind the line. 

Once again pattern recognition says behind the line of storms, where the mixing is maximized behind the dry line. I never got the ahead of the line wording from some EM briefings (except for Mountains). Yes, it was breezy ahead of the line. However the strongest winds behind the line always seemed self-evident to me. Could be the advantage of Great Plains experience. Friday was unusual for here, but it is somewhat common in the Plains. 

So… not that I’m disappointed but was WAA in the ML the limiting factor here? I haven’t seen any after storm analysis but ML mixing was too moist?


.
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Yes @PowellVolz the warm mid-levels ML might have played a role in mitigating storm intensity in East Tenn. ML was even warmer AL/GA, but their surface was much warmer - netting greater CAPE. Then Kentucky got more dynamics and less warm ML, another net bullish outcome despite lower surface Ts. 

Southeast Tennessee had a little more action. AL/GA boundary that likes to wrap around the southern Apps lifted up into and through Chattanooga. We are lucky* it was not a few degrees warmer. Dews made it in here. 

*Layperson and Public perspective. Storm chasers might have a different view, haha! However that close to home, I'm with the Public.

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