January 24-25th Clipper/Ice Ice Baby

John1122 wrote:At one point during what it was showing on the snowfall maps as heavy snow over Southern Tennessee the sounding showed 800-850 temps in the low 40s with surface temps in the upper 20s.

Noticed the same thing John..a really "Yikes" situation. I think this ice will be the main show. Im really not expecting much snow here in Morristown either. Looking like a possible skating rink here in east Tennessee

I hope I actually can get a decent ice event this time. Last one stayed west of me and this one looks to be east but hopefully I get some atleast.

Was looking at some soundings from the NAM Sfc parameters for TYS/CSV and TRI. It actually has Thundersleet and ThunderZR.

From CSV. Took out some of the data to name what each thing was showing.

HR 45 Temp 28 DP 26 3hr precip 0.23 0.01 thickness 547 850 temp 5.8 precip type -TSPL

TYS

HR 45 surface temp 31 DP 27 3hr precip 0.15 thickness 547 850 temp 3.8 precip type -TSPL

HR 48 surface temp 31 DP 30 3hr precip 0.42 thickness 547 850 temp 3.4 -TSRA

TRI hasn't got any mention of thunder but has the best chance of staying more snow. The 850 there stays near freezing but the 750-800 temp gets up to about 1c. If precip melts that probaby means TRI gets more sleet.

Where is Toot through all this mess. Looking at the models things are about to get very slick.

snowman72 wrote:Where is Toot through all this mess. Looking at the models things are about to get very slick.

Snowman, I am just as pumped as you are. This is definitely an interesting system to say the least. However, Toot has posted within the last hour, and he has a generalized call map on his facebook's weather profile Wxeastern. He has been handling things pretty great considering the fact that he is busy every single day with work. Just remain patient, if at all possible... hahaha

I'm just seeing entirely too much dry air to overcome for this system to have an impact on our region...

The blue areas on the graphic will likely be all snow and the pink/red areas will be a wintry mix of rain/sleet/freezing rain and snow where the blue area meets the pink area. This is a very complicated forecast so confidence level is lower than it would normally be. Ice accumulations could exceed .50 inches in some spots which will be more than enough to cause power outages broken tree limbs and very dangerous driving conditions.

snowdog wrote:No one in east TN watching the 12z NAM? Looks good for you hillbilly's...again.

LOL..I just now seen this one! Right back at you buddy

What in the world got into the 0z NAM. This obviously is overestimating snowfall. I know it was a little S and W of 18z, which made it a little colder run, but geeze, not all of this will be snow folks, but if it were, WOW. I'd guess that if this solution verified, I40 N might get 1-2inches of snow changing to sleet and ending as freezing rain. TRI gets slammed on this one!

You know what is weird. This is the first time I have EVER seen MRX issue a WSW for the valley without surrounding CWA's already doing so first

Yeah, gotta think it might have to do with them playing the last one too conservative until the last min. this last event was really bad for wrecks and unprepared people. I'm sure they took it on the chin a little bit.

LOL... none of these models know what the heck is going on, so how are we supposed to know whats going to go down?? It could be a NE tn snow event, all the way to a full-fledge ice storm... I favor the in between here, but we'll see. The rate things are going, I'd expect nothing to be set in stone until its actually knocking on our doors.

Toot wrote:You know what is weird. This is the first time I have EVER seen MRX issue a WSW for the valley without surrounding CWA's already doing so first

No matter what the models are saying, just because it is mrx we are talking about, I'd be willing to bet the WSW will be retracted tomorrow, with a "nothing to see here" approach lol

Uh not if the latest nam is right holy cow big jump in moisture Marx is going to be out in front this time

tom23 wrote:No matter what the models are saying, just because it is mrx we are talking about, I'd be willing to bet the WSW will be retracted tomorrow, with a "nothing to see here" approach lol

I doubt that very seriously..ZR is nothing to play with. Its not like a couple of inches of snow. It wreaks havoc on everything!! Im not sure what the worst ice storm was (1980?) in east TN but this definately has the potential to rank right there with the worst! This is a pretty serious threat being progged.

Anyone expect the storm to hit before midnight?

What's the NAM saying?

This is the 4km NAM and this is a very eye opening graphic..let me tell you why. The model is picking up on features that make plenty of meteorological sense. Which is not the norm for snowfall graphics!

You see the lack of color over the extreme eastern areas TN/NC border? That is the highest of elevations in the smokies.. which are around 5000-7000ft! This is where the warm nose is evident on soundings/skew t's. What this tells me is that the model is somewhat accurately forecasting where frozen precip will fall and how much! You rarely EVER see the valley with more snowfall than the mountains. That said.. this particular paramater cant tell the difference between snow..sleet or freezing rain.

Lets just hope and pray that all that color in northern east TN is snow/sleet and not freezing rain!

The nam was considerably wetter and shifted the heaviest qpf north a few hundred miles closer to toot

Lol, the NAM doesn't understand the shallowness of this arctic airmass. It thinks that all the precip falls as snow. And, N of I40 it may for awhile. However, the NAM says 5-6 for knox. N and 8-12 for TRI. But, again, this snowfall map doesn't take into effect the warm layer, or nose at 850mb or roughly 5k ft, which melts the snow, and btwn 5k ft and here, the precip refreezes.

Not to get the thread off topic but I also seen where we could expect a coating to an inch tonight. Has anyone else seen this anywhere?

Its snow... But if it was freezing rain it would be only 1/10th of what that map shows. Anyways that image looks horrible for middle Tennessee we get missed again I guess..

skillsweather wrote:Its snow... But if it was freezing rain it would be only 1/10th of what that map shows.

NO..you dont understand. The model cant tell the difference in frozen precip type. Its either rain or snow by the models way of thinking.

Ok if it ice its not calling for 14 inches of ice lol that wont happen. I would say mixture of ice and snow for that far north and east (tri citys) and if it was all ice it would only be like .7 (still alot no doubt) but that image is misleading with the 14 inchs thats all I am trying to say lol. Dont want anyone to think it means 14 inch's of ice.