Winter 2024/2025 January Thread

[John1122]

Those dates in 1961 saw a strong cold front and anafrontal snow on the 19th. It rained almost half an inch with the temp rising to 38 by 11am, the front passed and the temp quickly fell, the rain changed to heavy snow with 3. 5 inches of snow that afternoon/evening. The temp dropped to 17 by midnight and it was 16 the morning of the 20th.

There was light snow/flurries on the 20th with a second wave of true arctic air set to hit.  The high was 29 here. 

The temperature held in the upper 20s through evening and it was still 28 at midnight. I assume sw flow ahead of the next front kept the temperature steady. 

The big time arctic front crossed here by 5:30am when the next temp was recorded. It was 21 at 5:30am, it was 13 at noon, it was 7 at 5pm, and -5 at 11pm. Sometime during the midnight to 5am time frame it snowed 3.5 more inches with what I assume was a clipper in the Arctic air. 

The 22nd the high was 21 and the low was -7. 

Keep in mind, these observations at are 2500ish feet. 

However from what I can find, the entire area had temperatures near 0 and 2-4 inches of snow. 

 

[Daniel Boone]

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

Now, folks, this is an analog package right here (CPC d8-14).  1985 triple weighted.....and two of those dates are the mother load dates.  Not my words, but theirs.  The analogs in bold are extremely heavy hitters.  I am probably not bought into the pattern enough to go with not one, not two, not three, not four...but five elite winters.  Those winters are 5 star recruits.  

19810104
19850118
19851221
19610120
19850109 
20001231
19951229
19770117
19850123
19601221

And 1960-61 was the Kennedy inaugural snowstorm.  @Daniel Booneor @John1122 was 1960-61 a good winter for the forum area?  Just asking since CPC double weighted it.

https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=67947

They were all in the top 20 out of 130 years coldest( except'96 oddly' although the record cold that Year was early Feb). January 1961 was ranked 15th for Virginia. 16th in most of extreme SWVA. 85 was 4th, 77, 1st( not surprising) , 81 10th. 1970 6th and '96, 32nd. Here's a Link to Lee County. You can find yours on the Sites homepage.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/county/time-series/VA-105/tavg/1/1/1895-2024

[Daniel Boone]

43 minutes ago, John1122 said:

Those dates in 1961 saw a strong cold front and anafrontal snow on the 19th. It rained almost half an inch with the temp rising to 38 by 11am, the front passed and the temp quickly fell, the rain changed to heavy snow with 3. 5 inches of snow that afternoon/evening. The temp dropped to 17 by midnight and it was 16 the morning of the 20th.

There was light snow/flurries on the 20th with a second wave of true arctic air set to hit.  The high was 29 here. 

The temperature held in the upper 20s through evening and it was still 28 at midnight. I assume sw flow ahead of the next front kept the temperature steady. 

The big time arctic front crossed here by 5:30am when the next temp was recorded. It was 21 at 5:30am, it was 13 at noon, it was 7 at 5pm, and -5 at 11pm. Sometime during the midnight to 5am time frame it snowed 3.5 more inches with what I assume was a clipper in the Arctic air. 

The 22nd the high was 21 and the low was -7. 

Keep in mind, these observations at are 2500ish feet. 

However from what I can find, the entire area had temperatures near 0 and 2-4 inches of snow. 

 

Great stuff John ! I don't have my own Data back that far. Glad you have that and share it. 

[John1122]

11 minutes ago, Daniel Boone said:

They were all in the top 20 out of 130 years coldest. January 1961 was ranked 15th for Virginia. 16th in most of extreme SWVA. 85 was 4th, 77, 1st( not surprising) , 81 10th. 1970 6th and '96, 32nd. Here's a Link to Lee County. You can find yours on the Sites homepage.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/county/time-series/VA-105/tavg/1/1/1895-2024

1977 is the coldest here too. Average of 20.6 for Campbell. I think 1940 may be 2nd, it's average for here is 22. 

[Daniel Boone]

1 minute ago, John1122 said:

1977 is the coldest here too. Average of 20.6 for Campbell. I think 1940 may be 2nd, it's average for here is 22. 

Yeah, 1940 2nd here too. The cold late 70's stretch was, '77, 1, 78,3rd and 79 10th.

[John1122]

The ICON and Canadian have found the little system the GFS has late next week. The GFS ha it but very suppressed and weak. It's a clipper and the Canadian has handled them better this winter so far. 

[John1122]

The GFS is back to some extent with the system on the 6th vs the 18z dud in that time frame. A bit of snow on the front end. Maybe some ice too. 

[John1122]

GFS looks like it's gonna make a pretty map for us in a few minutes. Fantasy land notice applies.

[John1122]

The GFS fully recovered (for this run) from its 18z Pac ridge displaced way East. Cold and snowy til the end. 

[John1122]

The Euro, at range, so take it with salt grains, is absolutely brutal cold. The actual 2m temperatures are around the apparent temps Carver has been concerned with. Those temps are near -25 to -30. 

I can see why 1985 was an analog. 

[John1122]

The Euro has me a -6 at 1pm on Friday the 10th after a morning low of -13. The high appears to be around -5. It's working on 48 straight hours below 0. 

[John1122]

Snow event during the Arctic invasion on that Euro run.

 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

6 hours ago, John1122 said:

The GFS fully recovered (for this run) from its 18z Pac ridge displaced way East. Cold and snowy til the end. 

6z was even better. 

[Carvers Gap]

The 6s GFS Kuchera would probably be in the top ten of weather model runs for NE TN.

[WinterWonderland]

The 6s GFS Kuchera would probably be in the top ten of weather model runs for NE TN.

This is off topic but I have a quick question. I'm not able to sort my threads so that the most recent replies put this thread at the top. Is that because it's not pinned? I hope I'm making sense.

Love this forum and all the great info and input!

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[Carvers Gap]

1 minute ago, WinterWonderland said:

This is off topic but I have a quick question. I'm not able to sort my threads so that the most recent replies put this thread at the top. Is that because it's not pinned? I hope I'm making sense.

Love this forum and all the great info and input!

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
 

I would think that might be it.  I generally just use a web browser.  Anyone from tapatalk care to answer?

[Met1985]

5 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

I would think that might be it.  I generally just use a web browser.  Anyone from tapatalk care to answer?

Yeah if I use tapatalk I have to scroll down because this thread isn't pinned yet. Maybe yall can get @Mr Bobto pin this today or one of our own like @jburns. Hope this helps.

[Uncle Nasty]

Yeah if I use tapatalk I have to scroll down because this thread isn't pinned yet. Maybe yall can get [mention=1670]Mr Bob[/mention]to pin this today or one of our own like [mention=512]jburns[/mention]. Hope this helps.

Same here on Tapatalk. The most recent pinned post is December.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Carvers Gap]

Here is the 6z GFS Kuchera.  Overrunning event, couple of preceding/minor NW flow events, major NW flow event post big storm.  This is the second maxed out run of the last four.  Just to keep some measure of reality after looking at this, ensembles are 5-8" of snow over NE TN.  It has been my experience that when we see decent ensembles over NE TN, that is usually a decent sign for other places as well.

[Carvers Gap]

As crazy as those numbers look, we managed that during 14-15 IMBY.  Ratios get crazy high during cold weather.   I would think the mountains have an increasingly good shot at good snow.  Valleys are always a crap shoot, but get decent cold in place and that is when we have a chance at good things.  Ensemble snow amounts are generally what I look at for this range.

The 0z Euro and 6z GFS all show various ways to score with cold air in place.  The 0z Euro was a really good run BTW as John noted.

[matt9697]

8 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

Here is the 6z GFS Kuchera.  Overrunning event, couple of preceding/minor NW flow events, major NW flow event post big storm.  This is the second maxed out run of the last four.  Just to keep some measure of reality after looking at this, ensembles are 5-8" of snow over NE TN.  It has been my experience that when we see decent ensembles over NE TN, that is usually a decent sign for other places as well.

Fun to look at for sure; as we get close this will come into better focus, I would, as I am sure you are, take with a grain maybe two, of salt.  I will add, that as you stated, very cold air has a propensity to really really squeeze any moisture out of the atmosphere so high totals are certainly possible. I know that happened in 1985, Nashville really wasnt suppose to get that much but seems like we got 5" or 6" of that really really fine, light, blow around type snow. 

[Carvers Gap]

The 6z Euro AIFS puts the forum area north of I-40 below zero.  I need to check to see if snow is under that.  No snow maps from it, but just have to look at each system and guess.  I will post back in a second on this post - so hit refresh.

[Carvers Gap]

10 minutes ago, matt9697 said:

Fun to look at for sure; as we get close this will come into better focus, I would, as I am sure you are, take with a grain maybe two, of salt. 

I don't want to cause false hope.  Honestly, that is a realistic map IF that cold verifies.  It is one possibility of many.  20" of snow in NE TN is not as uncommon as official records would have us to believe. 20" in the mountains over 16 days would be normal or even below normal at this time of year.   Really the thing to watch is IF those bigger runs continue. They won't be every run, but just watch and see if the show up about 1/3 of the time.  

The CPC is using monster winter analogs.  Even one of those analogs would get my attention, but they are using upwards of 70% of their analogs from the very best winters of the past.  If you were playing Madden football, those would the the Hall of Fame all-star teams.  I am not exactly sure why they are using those years.  There are plenty of other years besides 77, 85, and 96.  So, I question that a little bit.  That said, it isn't just a wx model showing that potential.  CPC is ringing the bell as well.  

But yes, we live in the Upper South.  All options (good and bad) are on the table at this point.  Pretty severe cold does look likely - that seems to be a constant.  But all are wise to make sure to get these within a few days before setting higher expectations.  

My general rule for big snow is modeling doesn't see them IMBY until the last minute.  If modeling is increasing totals within the last 48 hours, and increases until the even starts....the model is in catch up mode.   That said, some of the great winter patterns of the last 35 years were seen 10+ days out.  It is a weird deal, but modeling sometimes catches bigger events at range.  We'll just have to see if we see any repeated of that.......for now, ensembles rule the roost.

[matt9697]

Anyone know how I interpret these charts? Hard to follow, where are the dates? Times? 

[Carvers Gap]

I should add....see John's post about the 0z Euro.  I think the best potential is between d8-20, and that has been the case for weeks.  Deterministic models are just now "seeing" that timeframe.  So, model watching might be fun for a few days.  Until we get that potential fully inside of d10(can't get all 12 days obviously), it will be tough to know details.  However, I do like seeing northern stream energy embedded in a cold pattern.  That is usually a good sign for MBY, NE TN, SW VA, SE KY, and even down to Chattanooga if the northwest flow starts flying.  Really, the entire region has a chance with severe cold.  Cold and dry is always an option and maybe the default likely option....but that isn't always the outcome in our forum area. In order, I would put these as our best, realistic chances after looking at modeling for a few days....

1.  Northwest flow clippers of the 1-2" snow variety 

2. Ana front - 4-8" of high ratio snow followed by bitterly cold air

3.  Slider - general 3-4" of snow over most of the forum area

.

.

.

.

.

4.  Overrunning even - big hitter 

5.  Miller A / Inland Runner....we need the cold front to be sharp and tap the GOM.  The exit point for systems that climb appears OTS for now.  So, we need to depend on the northern stream or general confluence until the trough retrogrades enough for the Atlantic to be in play.

[Carvers Gap]

4 minutes ago, matt9697 said:

Anyone know how I interpret these charts? Hard to follow, where are the dates? Times? 

Gives you the day for January...08.  Then it gives the hour....21?  08/21....Looks like a full 16 day run listed.

[Carvers Gap]

The 6z AIFS is probably my main concern.  That is just bitterly cold.  The 500 sigma map is equally impressive.  40+ degrees below normal during the second coldest week of the year. 

[matt9697]

6 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

The 6z AIFS is probably my main concern.  That is just bitterly cold.  The 500 sigma map is equally impressive.  40+ degrees below normal during the second coldest week of the year. 

That is craziness!

[Met1985]

8 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

The 6z AIFS is probably my main concern.  That is just bitterly cold.  The 500 sigma map is equally impressive.  40+ degrees below normal during the second coldest week of the year. 

This is dangerous serious cold right here

[Carvers Gap]

57 minutes ago, matt9697 said:

Anyone know how I interpret these charts? Hard to follow, where are the dates? Times? 

Just tossing the snow maps as an outlier(and they may not be an outlier...but just at this longer range, I will), take a look at those temp maps.  Those look like 3 hour increments.  I assume the include afternoon temps.  Take a look at how long the 2mtemps(surface basically) stay below freezing at both locations.  Look at the lows at TRI.  The 6z Euro AIFS just posted similar numbers.  For me right now, the cold is the big story.  Precip will come into focus as we get closer.  Just and insane run all the way around.  I suspect we see some warm-ups in front of these strong cold fronts FWIW, but if that were to verify...that is pretty rough.