Winter 2012/2013 early look

Sure it'll be gone soon, but the snow accum map from that storm.

Would be nice..

i posted this in the snowcover forum, but will probably get more play here. It definitely valid for the forum.

It's time to look at the advance of Eurasian snowcover and seriously consider its implications on the upcoming winter for those in the southeast. 18 days into the month and we are on pace to tie or even outdo 2009. NOAA is still trying to figure out what to forecast temperature wise and going with equal chances on temps. With snowcover exploding and forecast to continue, along with an increasing potential for a weak west based NINO and a sunspot max well below other maxes I think we could enjoy one of the best winters of the last 3 decades

Well here is TWCs guess at December and Jan.

http://bcove.me/uawfhrke

I guess we will flip coin.

Dyersburg Weather wrote:Well here is TWCs guess at December and Jan.

http://bcove.me/uawfhrke

I'm not giving up hope just yet. This was TWC's forecast from last year. If anything, I'm feeling a little more optimistic.....

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/wsi-late-fall-early-winter-outlook_2011-09-19

Let's not panic, it's still October.

Kinda can't help but notice the snowcover map at the top left corner. It has been steadily filling in with snow here the past few weeks, and has really expanded rapidly on the other side of the globe in the past few days. From what I can tell, this is a good thing.

Yea I noticed that too. I got a few images of how its grown since october 10th. If you want here is the link to were there at. http://www.tnweatherspot.com/t445-snow-expansion-change-oct-10-present

I believe that snow cover has a big impact on winters but I don't know were the impact is and if its good or bad lol but yea thats why I got the images posted every 7 days so we can maybe have a little idea on what effects it does.

Above average snow cover in Siberia often translates to -NAO winters and a cold Eastern US.

With all the failed opportunities at snow last winter and now this failure, I have to wonder, what is the best setup for snow in the valley. I've only lived here a year, so i'm new to the whole concept of downsloping. I know all the other variables, bc they are like the rest of TN. I.E. lack of cold air and/or moisture. I don't, for the life of me though understand how, if downsloping is always such a factor that the valley could ever get any snow, much less average 9 in per yr. Even more so, how could knoxville ever get 50 something inches like back in the 1950s, like they did. Any thoughts?

In 2009 and 2010 the valley got several decent 2 to 4 inch snows from a variety of setups. Just gotta get lucky and hope for a big powerful system to come rolling through. Toot or someone else could give you a run down of the specific types of setups that are best for us. I will say that if you hear the words "dynamic cooling" or "marginal temps" you can put your money on the valley getting screwed. We'll get ours, just gotta be patient.

Jed33 wrote:With all the failed opportunities at snow last winter and now this failure, I have to wonder, what is the best setup for snow in the valley. I've only lived here a year, so i'm new to the whole concept of downsloping. I know all the other variables, bc they are like the rest of TN. I.E. lack of cold air and/or moisture. I don't, for the life of me though understand how, if downsloping is always such a factor that the valley could ever get any snow, much less average 9 in per yr. Even more so, how could knoxville ever get 50 something inches like back in the 1950s, like they did. Any thoughts?

Gulf lows that take the Miller A track or a similar one are the key to big snowfalls in the valley. Downsloping is minimized due to the angle of approach. Precip entering the valley from the south doesnt meet up with much elevation before it enters the valley. An easy way to think of it is a room with three walls.. one on the north side one on the east side and one on the west..the south side is wide open for buisness!

I figured that was just about the only way to have a blockbuster here. Just seems like it would be so difficult to get that setup. Must have been a lot more gulf lows that used to come throug this area. Maybe we can get back into a pattern that produces these lows more often.

Actually 2009/10 and 2010/11 featured many gulf type lows. They're not really that uncommon during winter..especially during -NAO winters.

Sometimes the clipper type systems come through for us for a couple of inches or more. But yeah, keep the fingers crossed for big gulf lows.

For those of us in the Knoxville t.v. Market, I just heard that wvlt met David Aldrich is going to release his winter outlook tonight at 11. He mentioned that Sandy would play an important role in his forecast, but didn't elaborate. I'm guessing he means the blocking brought about, dunno. Guess we'll have to see at 11

Thanks for the info jed..watching WVLT 11pm news now to see if Aldrich goes warm or cold..lol

I like David!

I wasn't abe to catch what he said. Are we cold or warm? TIA

Sadly, I don't know. I fell asleep in the chair. I'm sure Toot can tell us.

He went colder than normal with Dec and Feb the coldest months of winter. He was raisng a little hell on MRX for the missing snow data in their 1981-current snow climo graphs too...lol

He said he prefered to use the older climo (1971-2000 I think) due to the newer stuff missing bookoo's of data. He's expecting 8-12 inches of snow in Knoxvegas this winter!!

Is 8-12 inches above the norm for Knoxville? I'm just NW of there in Oak Ridge and would LOVE to see some snow this winter!

Snowflake wrote:Is 8-12 inches above the norm for Knoxville? I'm just NW of there in Oak Ridge and would LOVE to see some snow this winter!

Average annual snowfall for Knoxville is 11.5 inches.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/snowfall.html

Toot wrote:He was raisng a little hell on MRX for the missing snow data in their 1981-current snow climo graphs too...lol

Yeah, it's really inexcusable.

Robert Gamble's Winter 2012-2013 Outlook:

http://wxsouth.com/?cat=127

Pretty exciting stuff. This might very well be a great winter for Tennessee.