Weather Headlines

ALERT For Snow Squalls

A region of bitterly cold air aloft moving across the mountain area Friday and Friday night will trigger snow squall development. Intense bursts of snow are expected to begin developing Friday afternoon into Friday evening. Embedded thundersnow will also become possible, along with visibility that may drop to near zero at times (for brief periods).

Hazardous Travel Conditions Are Expected To Develop, Especially Late Friday Into Friday Night

Although poor travel conditions may develop prior to late afternoon, the most widespread hazardous travel conditions are expected late Friday into Friday night and Saturday morning.

While the weather pattern has recently turned wintry, more like February should be climatologically, it is a transition back to unseasonable warmth and deep, tropical moisture transport that is most worrisome heading into early March.

**A heavy to excessive rainfall potential is increasing for next week as the pattern reverts back to that observed during much of February.

Former Alert

*ALERT For Accumulating Snow Beginning Wednesday Afternoon At Highest Elevations And Expanding To Include Middle & Lower Elevations Wednesday Night Into Thursday AM

*Locations along and north-northwest of the High Knob Massif and Tennessee Valley Divide are expected to have the greatest impacts (as well as locations on windward slopes from Mount Rogers southwest to the Smokies).

**The potential for hazardous road conditions will be greatest after sunset on Wednesday night with upslope snow showers and snow squalls on WNW-NW flow and Great Lake moisture transport.

**The exception will be at highest elevations, where all snow is expected to fall at the summit level of the High Knob Massif. This could impact travel on upper elevation routes Wednesday afternoon (e.g., State Route 619, 238, 237), including State Route 160 across Black Mountain between Appalachia and Cumberland.

*Air turns bitterly cold during Wednesday night into Thursday morning and again, with a second surge, during Friday night into Saturday morning.

Low wind chills will accompany both surges of arctic air during Wednesday night into Thursday and Friday night into Saturday. Caution is advised for outdoor activities.

*A snow burst potential will exist, especially during the late Friday into early Saturday period, with whiteout snow squalls becoming possible.

Huge Weather Swings In Early March

The first week of Meteorological Spring will feature a huge swing in weather conditions, from arctic cold to unseasonably mild temperatures.

This occurs as a upper trough over the eastern USA reverts back to a ridge-trough-ridge pattern which dominated the month of February.

The result will be a swing from much below average to much above average temperatures during next week.

A heavy to excessive rainfall potential is being monitored for next week into the second week of March, and will be in part dependent upon the longevity of this pattern that features a ridge-trough-ridge regime (similar to observed during February 2018, 2019, and 2020).

Many ensemble members, including those of the favored 51-member European Model group (which I can not show on this site), are predicting a return of heavy to excessive rain amounts next week into the second week of March.

While placement and intensity of the heaviest bands of rain remain to be work out, the pattern (as observed in February 2018, 2019, 2020 should now be well known to anyone following these wet months in the SE USA).

The pattern in February 2020 has added to the legacy of February 2018 and February 2019, with more than a foot of total precipitation now observed at upper elevations in the High Knob Massif during each of these months.

Big Cherry Lake Dam

February 2018: 14.37″

February 2019: 12.50″

*1-24 February 2020: 12.09″

*12.46″ on Eagle Knob and 12.52″ in High Chaparral-Robinson Knob