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January 15th-17th 2024 Arctic Blast/Snow Event


John1122
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7 minutes ago, snowbird1230 said:

Crazy , was 41° in Robbinsville an hour ago, now 34° and snow..

Congrats, hope you guys can score om that side. We are fighting a SE wind..got up to 15-20 as the temp jumped. Until that switches directions we are out of luck.

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For those stuck up against the base of the mountain and rain..the HRRR, which has been fairly accurate with the snow cutoff imby, has slowly been bumping totals up last couple runs for later this evening. Is it right, who knows, but may not end up completely blanked.

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I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the best snow experience I've had since moving to east TN in 1994.  Not necessarily the biggest flakes or heaviest convective bands but damn good.  I was here for Jan/Feb 96.  March 2022 was some of the hardest I've seen fall and possibly the most accumulation at my area.  But this long duration event is a thing of beauty.  I'm over the 6 inch mark currently and the scene outside is picture perfect dime ripping heavy snow with fatty radar returns on the way.  Best east TN storm for me.  Very very grateful.

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Just now, Stovepipe said:

I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the best snow experience I've had since moving to east TN in 1994.  Not necessarily the biggest flakes or heaviest convective bands but damn good.  I was here for Jan/Feb 96.  March 2022 was some of the hardest I've seen fall and possibly the most accumulation at my area.  But this long duration event is a thing of beauty.  I'm over the 6 inch mark currently and the scene outside is picture perfect dime ripping heavy snow with fatty radar returns on the way.  Best east TN storm for me.  Very very grateful.

Yeah you guys are gonna get rocked..wouldn't be surprised if some in the valley will go over a foot.

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1 minute ago, Stovepipe said:

I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the best snow experience I've had since moving to east TN in 1994.  Not necessarily the biggest flakes or heaviest convective bands but damn good.  I was here for Jan/Feb 96.  March 2022 was some of the hardest I've seen fall and possibly the most accumulation at my area.  But this long duration event is a thing of beauty.  I'm over the 6 inch mark currently and the scene outside is picture perfect dime ripping heavy snow with fatty radar returns on the way.  Best east TN storm for me.  Very very grateful.

Yeah, this is up there for me along with 2/4/96, 1/16/03, and 1/22/16. Definitely a top 3-4 snow in 30 years living in TN. We had great winter storms in 1994, 2008, 2010-11, and February 2015/2021...but many of them had ice cut into totals. In terms of pure snow, this is up there with the greatest hits. 

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I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the best snow experience I've had since moving to east TN in 1994.  Not necessarily the biggest flakes or heaviest convective bands but damn good.  I was here for Jan/Feb 96.  March 2022 was some of the hardest I've seen fall and possibly the most accumulation at my area.  But this long duration event is a thing of beauty.  I'm over the 6 inch mark currently and the scene outside is picture perfect dime ripping heavy snow with fatty radar returns on the way.  Best east TN storm for me.  Very very grateful.
Agree 100%
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For several days, the NAM busted badly in the eastern valley as it didn't have any snow east of the Plateau.  Globals did much better over here.  The final run of the GFS before the event is probably going to verify for the most part with the exception of the foothills which mostmodels basically failed w/ until the last minute..  The Canadian sniffed out the problems in the eastern foothills first.  Once the NAM came on board yesterday, it also had it.  The HRRR also had it to some extent when it came into range.  It is also worth pointing out that the NAM doing well in middle and west TN while not doing well here is easily explainable.  It was closer in time to the event and those areas got cold quickly(better ratios).  On this end, we were still several hours behind from a modeling standpoint...and it overdid accums on the Plateau and Cumberlands which was feedback.  I do think the NC lee side low caused it problems.  Once it lost that feedback(and we got closer in time), it did much better. It didn't dial-in here until about 12-16 hours to go.   The other problem is that as the system backed and slowed, the NAM tended to feedback.  The ICON is probably gonna be the big winner in all of this statewide, and that is probably a shock to most - me for sure.   The 3k NAM was particularly good.  The 12k NAM was terrible.  The RAP and HRRR have been really good as well.  I don't like the RAP, but it has done decently this go around.  

As MRX noted, no model had the warm air pushing to I-81 in NE TN.....personally, I think the front stalled at dawn at the Plateau and then daytime temps caused issues.  The front stalling on the Plateau is not unusual.  As Tellico noted the other day, Knoxville has a nice pathway for cold air from the Plateau.  Chattanooga and TRI do not.   The big red flag was when temps in NE TN yesterday beat forecast highs by 8 degrees.  That produced a lot of warm air to scour as we got cloudy at dark, and warm air couldn't scour.  Then it go banked against the Apps this AM.

The NAM itself is I think a false positive.  It got some things right, but for the wrong reason IMO.  It got incorrectly amped and missed the track, but its snow totals worked out.  Why?  The cold air moved aggressively into middle and west TN and allowed rates to be crazy good.  I have roughy 4" of snow right now.  My ratio might be 8:1.  If it was colder, I would likely have double that.  So, whichever model moved the cold in most aggressively is correct...and I don't which one that is....probably the RGEM? The other thing is that the over-amping of the NAM gave it some semblance of expanding the precip shield.  Its precip shield was juiced due to feedback and had a bad track in the East - plenty of snow fell east of the Apps which it didn't have.  In reality, that precip shield was going to fill in as the rush of cold air squeezed every drop of moisture out of the air - it was impressive.  The entry point of heavy precip was decently modeled and didn't change much.  

Still looking through some of the reports from middle and west TN which are incredibly helpful.  I think the main bust(and let's be honest, nobody cares if a model busts and they get more snow than shown), is the foothills...and that may take some time to figure out.  

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I definitely recommend at least trying a dedicated observation thread next time.  The problem is that we have model talk and observations buried in the same thread.  My two cents, and my opinion is probably worth exactly that.  We(NE TN) are about 12-14 hours behind the onset of precip in western areas.  While observations are (and we HUGELY appreciate those as it makes it easier to see which model is actually initializing correctly) rolling, the storm is still being modeled in far NE areas.

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4 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

For several days, the NAM busted badly in the eastern valley as it didn't have any snow east of the Plateau.  Globals did much better over here.  The final run of the GFS before the event is probably going to verify for the most part with the exception of the foothills which mostmodels basically failed w/ until the last minute..  The Canadian sniffed out the problems in the eastern foothills first.  Once the NAM came on board yesterday, it also had it.  The HRRR also had it to some extent when it came into range.  It is also worth pointing out that the NAM doing well in middle and west TN while not doing well here is easily explainable.  It was closer in time to the event and those areas got cold quickly(better ratios).  On this end, we were still several hours behind from a modeling standpoint...and it overdid accums on the Plateau and Cumberlands which was feedback.  I do think the NC lee side low caused it problems.  Once it lost that feedback(and we got closer in time), it did much better. It didn't dial-in here until about 12-16 hours to go.   The other problem is that as the system backed and slowed, the NAM tended to feedback.  The ICON is probably gonna be the big winner in all of this statewide, and that is probably a shock to most - me for sure.   The 3k NAM was particularly good.  The 12k NAM was terrible.  The RAP and HRRR have been really good as well.  I don't like the RAP, but it has done decently this go around.  

As MRX noted, no model had the warm air pushing to I-81 in NE TN.....personally, I think the front stalled at dawn at the Plateau and then daytime temps caused issues.  The front stalling on the Plateau is not unusual.  As Tellico noted the other day, Knoxville has a nice pathway for cold air from the Plateau.  Chattanooga and TRI do not.   The big red flag was when temps in NE TN yesterday beat forecast highs by 8 degrees.  That produced a lot of warm air to scour as we got cloudy at dark, and warm air couldn't scour.  Then it go banked against the Apps this AM.

The NAM itself is I think a false positive.  It got some things right, but for the wrong reason IMO.  It got incorrectly amped and missed the track, but its snow totals worked out.  Why?  The cold air moved aggressively into middle and west TN and allowed rates to be crazy good.  I have roughy 4" of snow right now.  My ratio might be 8:1.  If it was colder, I would likely have double that.  So, whichever model moved the cold in most aggressively is correct...and I don't which one that is....probably the RGEM? The other thing is that the over-amping of the NAM gave it some semblance of expanding the precip shield.  Its precip shield was juiced due to feedback and had a bad track in the East - plenty of snow fell east of the Apps which it didn't have.  In reality, that precip shield was going to fill in as the rush of cold air squeezed every drop of moisture out of the air - it was impressive.  The entry point of heavy precip was decently modeled and didn't change much.  

Still looking through some of the reports from middle and west TN which are incredibly helpful.  I think the main bust(and let's be honest, nobody cares if a model busts and they get more snow than shown), is the foothills...and that may take some time to figure out.  

You are an absolute treasure in this forum, thank you for that post and all that you do.  This is incredibly useful information to reflect on going forward.

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2 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

I definitely recommend at least trying a dedicated observation thread next time.  The problem is that we have model talk and observations buried in the same thread.  My two cents, and my opinion is probably worth exactly that.  We(NE TN) are about 12-14 hours behind the onset of precip in western areas.  While observations are (and we HUGELY appreciate those as it makes it easier to see which model is actually initializing correctly) rolling, the storm is still being modeled in far NE areas.

Agreed. It's like having two discussions at once. Nowcasting reports and then discussion on last second models for the areas it hasn't begun yet.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

I definitely recommend at least trying a dedicated observation thread next time.  The problem is that we have model talk and observations buried in the same thread.  My two cents, and my opinion is probably worth exactly that.  We(NE TN) are about 12-14 hours behind the onset of precip in western areas.  While observations are (and we HUGELY appreciate those as it makes it easier to see which model is actually initializing correctly) rolling, the storm is still being modeled in far NE areas.

I definitely got more than thought would have

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Just now, weathertree4u2 said:

I definitely got more than thought would have

You are not alone in middle and west TN.  Even in Knoxville, the over performed early as the cold air made it that far and stopped.  Precip shield expanded northward.  Again, the NAM had it - but for the wrong reason (over amped).  All modeling missed it until the RAP and HRRR came on board.  The model that correctly modeled the cold air intrusion to Knoxville and then stopped it....that is the one that is correct...and the model which correctly backfilled the precip track over middle and west TN without having track issues over E TN.  The ICON is the winner in my book.  It got both scenarios right with the first and second wave it appears.

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