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Winter 23-24' Wx Observations Thread


Carvers Gap
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I put this in the pattern discussion thread, but it is worth a mention in the obs thread.

From MRX on social media...

Knoxville has so far confirmed 6 consecutive days with 4" or more of snow on the ground. This is tied with February 2-7, 1996 as the most consecutive days with 4" or more of snow depth with data going back to 1910. At our office, the same is true, but our data only goes back to the 1995-1996 winter. When looking at 6" or greater depth, Knoxville confirmed 4 consecutive days, which is the 2nd longest in the 114-year period of snow depth data. #mrxwx

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On 1/16/2024 at 3:12 PM, Jed33 said:

I was looking at that earlier. Check out the GFS. It is way colder than the cmc or the rgem! Can’t believe it will actually be that cold -14 in Knoxville and -13 at Tri. Seems about 10 degrees too cold. I guess if winds go completely calm and the sky stays completely clear it could make a run at that with this kind of deep snowpack 

I don't see how they didn't manage this in the 1970s. 

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What a week. I still have 4-6" in shaded places a week after the storm. My road is just a sheet of ice and my average outdoor temp was 18.5 degrees for an entire week! Also, the weight of the snow/ice has knocked a lot of my shrubs to the ground. I knocked it off yesterday, but I believe I was too late.

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Going through past BNA CF6's today. Unless I'm missing something, I believe this is the longest stretch of measurable snow (1"+) on the ground in almost 40 years! January 1988 and February 1996 came close but both occurrences didn't last a full week at least at the airport. 2038735532_Screenshot2024-01-22at7_10_41PM.thumb.png.7f155ae3a9c4833948c63bf960b86bd5.png2038735532_Screenshot2024-01-22at7_10_41PM.thumb.png.7f155ae3a9c4833948c63bf960b86bd5.png

Screenshot 2024-01-22 at 12.24.26 PM.png

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From MRX:

After yesterday's climate data, Knoxville has confirmed a 7th consecutive day with 4" or more of snow depth. This now breaks the record of 6 consecutive days during February 2-7, 1996 with data for snow depth going back to January of 1910.

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1 hour ago, Wurbus said:

From MRX:

After yesterday's climate data, Knoxville has confirmed a 7th consecutive day with 4" or more of snow depth. This now breaks the record of 6 consecutive days during February 2-7, 1996 with data for snow depth going back to January of 1910.

Problem is, Data is not trustworthy. Going back through records there's quite a bit of missing data, particularly snowfall. I'd bet my life there's been times of many more days than that. I know Knoxville doesn't get Snow as much as up here but, they've had much longer stretches. The late '70s are a good case. I kept Records for my area in Lee County then and there was a period of over a month and a half of 6 inches or more on the ground in 1977-78. Well over a foot in shaded, north facing areas. 

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2 hours ago, Daniel Boone said:

Problem is, Data is not trustworthy. Going back through records there's quite a bit of missing data, particularly snowfall. I'd bet my life there's been times of many more days than that. I know Knoxville doesn't get Snow as much as up here but, they've had much longer stretches. The late '70s are a good case. I kept Records for my area in Lee County then and there was a period of over a month and a half of 6 inches or more on the ground in 1977-78. Well over a foot in shaded, north facing areas. 

Some of the issue is that they take snow depth at a fixed time every day and don't count snowfall that happens that day as snow depth. You can look back at records and see things like 6 inches of  snowfall on January 15th but snow depth will be 0 or a trace etc according to what time the snow fell that day. Even in the chart Flash posed there it says 6.3 inches of snow fell on February 1st 1985 but snow depth is only one inch. I quickly found another day where it says snow depth was a trace on a day with 5 inches of snowfall recorded. Now I think snow depth is recorded as whatever the snowfall is that day, or close to it with compacting etc factored into the equation.

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38 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Some of the issue is that they take snow depth at a fixed time every day and don't count snowfall that happens that day as snow depth. You can look back at records and see things like 6 inches of  snowfall on January 15th but snow depth will be 0 or a trace etc according to what time the snow fell that day. Even in the chart Flash posed there it says 6.3 inches of snow fell on February 1st 1985 but snow depth is only one inch. I quickly found another day where it says snow depth was a trace on a day with 5 inches of snowfall recorded. Now I think snow depth is recorded as whatever the snowfall is that day, or close to it with compacting etc factored into the equation.

Exactly John. That is the way measurements used to be taken. If it fell at night they wouldn't measure until they got up or they'd wait as you said, until it ended. The average seasonal Snowfall for Pennington gap in the 1950 to 1980 period was 21 " . Records were recorded by a long time observer. He would measure like you said. They would also wait until snow ended too. If they were taken like they are supposed to be now, average then would have been 25-30" there. 

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2 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

Wow , melting fast here. Had 5-5.5 this morning now about 3. Hit 52 here as had a few periods of Sun. Currently 51.

There's been no sun here today at all. It was in the 20s this morning and froze up hard and clouded up over it. That kept the peak temp way down. 

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Yeah that's a dubious stat. 

On 1/21/2024 at 7:44 PM, Carvers Gap said:

I put this in the pattern discussion thread, but it is worth a mention in the obs thread.

From MRX on social media...

Knoxville has so far confirmed 6 consecutive days with 4" or more of snow on the ground. This is tied with February 2-7, 1996 as the most consecutive days with 4" or more of snow depth with data going back to 1910. At our office, the same is true, but our data only goes back to the 1995-1996 winter. When looking at 6" or greater depth, Knoxville confirmed 4 consecutive days, which is the 2nd longest in the 114-year period of snow depth data. #mrxwx

Anytime from the late 60s to early 80s we had the -PDO and -AMO which is ideal for low latitude winter storms. Basically dig the jet stream south coast to coast. I agree with @John1122 something is awry.

I'm on board with the consensus climate science, but the community must do better with so-called data quality control. Stuff like this seeds doubt in the data, and then doubt in future predictions. Burden of proof is still on us scientists, even if we're very confident. 

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3 hours ago, nrgjeff said:

Yeah that's a dubious stat. 

Anytime from the late 60s to early 80s we had the -PDO and -AMO which is ideal for low latitude winter storms. Basically dig the jet stream south coast to coast. I agree with @John1122 something is awry.

I'm on board with the consensus climate science, but the community must do better with so-called data quality control. Stuff like this seeds doubt in the data, and then doubt in future predictions. Burden of proof is still on us scientists, even if we're very confident. 

Actually, I didn't put it in the thread, because I doubted it.  (I certainly doubt the snow record for TRI.)   I just thought it was kind of cool.  I lived in Knox during the 70s, and we had plenty of snow.  But I don't remember it staying around like this storm.  I did also live in Knoxville during the 95-96 winter.  Similar to 93-94, it hung around for a long time.   I think that post by MRX indeed might be correct for lower elevations in Knoxville.  Knoxville, being right smack on the river, doesn't keep snow like other areas.  Kingsport is the same.    So, seeing snow last this long is rare IMBY.  North facing slopes here still have plenty of snow as do north facing concert sidewalks.  That is ten days from the onset of snow, which is incredibly impressive.  Glad for the warm-up!!!!!

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3 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

Actually, I didn't put it in the thread, because I doubted it.  (I certainly doubt the snow record for TRI.)   I just thought it was kind of cool.  I lived in Knox during the 70s, and we had plenty of snow.  But I don't remember it staying around like this storm.  I did also live in Knoxville during the 95-96 winter.  Similar to 93-94, it hung around for a long time.   I think that post by MRX indeed might be correct for lower elevations in Knoxville.  Knoxville, being right smack on the river, doesn't keep snow like other areas.  Kingsport is the same.    So, seeing snow last this long is rare IMBY.  North facing slopes here still have plenty of snow as do north facing concert sidewalks.  That is ten days from the onset of snow, which is incredibly impressive.  Glad for the warm-up!!!!!

I had a Weather Diary from the late '70's that I recorded daily obs; rain , snow, highs and lows. There was over 2 month stretches of Snow cover on the North facing slopes and in Shady areas in both Winters of 1976-77 and 1977-78 here in Lee County. I'm sure John can attest to that in his local. On a more recent occurrence, Feb. 2015 had Snow cover from Feb. 12 to March 8 th on North facing areas and shades. Solid cover of 4" or more from Feb. 16th to March 1. 

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5 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

I had a Weather Diary from the late '70's that I recorded daily obs; rain , snow, highs and lows. There was over 2 month stretches of Snow cover on the North facing slopes and in Shady areas in both Winters of 1976-77 and 1977-78 here in Lee County. I'm sure John can attest to that in his local. On a more recent occurrence, Feb. 2015 had Snow cover from Feb. 12 to March 8 th on North facing areas and shades. Solid cover of 4" or more from Feb. 16th to March 1. 

True on 2015 here in Kingsport.  We had snow on the ground for about a month.  I have roughly 30 inches of snow at my house.  It is the most I have seen during a season.

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Just now, Carvers Gap said:

True on 2015 here in Kingsport.  We had snow on the ground for about a month.  I have roughly 30 inches of snow at my house.  It is the most I have seen during a season.

Yep. Problem with official Records was KTRI just to your East only recorded around 10 inches as they had mixing issues quite a bit. That was a Kingsport west and North Bonanza. 

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2 hours ago, Daniel Boone said:

Yep. Problem with official Records was KTRI just to your East only recorded around 10 inches as they had mixing issues quite a bit. That was a Kingsport west and North Bonanza. 

And it makes no sense to me in the modern era to only use airport reporting.  (I do know that historic snow records do exist for Kingsport proper).  Really, I have no problem w/ regular people sending in reports which populate a larger database.  Sure, there would be some scientific descepency.  That said, it would be pretty easy to develop programming which would flush outliers.  TRI more often times than not doesn't tell the entire story for snow in the Tri-Cities.  Often, it is the least snowiest place in the region....well, outside of the EB!!!  LOL.  With satellite reporting, it should be better than it is.  

In southwest Virginia, I don't think people realize how snow that area is right on the KY/VA border.  Wise just gets clobbered, and so does your area.  Off topic, one of my favorite things on Friday night is to see the highlights from SW VA.  So many small schools, but such great tradition.  Some great ballers from that area!

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