WINTER STORM WARNING - PREP TIME

 Well, here we go with our first solid shot of snow, coming on the heels of our abnormal warmth recently.  The National Weather Service has Apple Creek Acres under a Winter Storm Warning (click on link to see official wording):

WHEN:  10pm Sunday night until 12 noon Monday.

WHAT:  Rain changing over to snow, heavy at times, with strong winds. Changeover appears to be around mid-nightish.  If it's earlier than that, we could be in for the high end amounts.

AMOUNT:  3"-8, highest along TN border and above 4,000 feet.

Luckily, we have today to go get anything you think you might need, the ol' "just in case" scenario.  Snow will taper off early Monday, but the winds and cold temperatures will make for windchills in the teens and possibly single digits.  The sun reappears Monday afternoon, but temps will drop close to 20 degrees by Tuesday morning.  It will stay pretty chilly for several days...with....dare I say....another chance for snow?

Another clipper system will pass through Thursday and by Thursday night there is a chance for a changeover to snow.  At this moment, it doesn't look like much, so I'll address that later this week.

When I first started this blog, after we got hammered by 18" after a forecast of 4"-8", my go-to algorithm maps are the ones I'm posting below, to give you an idea of the model progression and trying to read between the lines, so to speak.  You'll read me talking about 3 main models:  GFS (usually on the mark), NAM (good close to the event), and the EURO (usually best in winter).  For this event, the EURO only recently increased like the bullish GFS, but all pointing to accumulating snow, regardless.  In the following images, ACA is represented by a red dot...click on any image to enlarge.

Saturday AM run GFS

When I wrote yesterday's blog, only the GFS was hot and heavy, and one model does not a storm make.  Hence my hedging on amounts.  But not anymore...

Saturday PM run GFS

12 hours later, the GFS was sticking to its guns and even increasing the amounts.  That makes my ears perk up, the consistency.  Other models were still lagging.

Sunday AM run GFS

12 hours later, the GFS spread the heavy snow up into SW VA, and now showed what is a typical banding of a strong NW flow event.  The TN border and highest elevations will pick up significant snow, with decreasing amounts rather quickly dropping off the farther SW you go.  The banding is very tight around ACA, so amounts can swing a lot depending on wind direction.  Speaking of which...

The three colored lines may not seem like they are that different in orientation, but they are when it comes to snow totals.  A and C represent situations where ACA snow is more limited, being blocked by the higher terrain en route, which orographically takes a lot of snow out of our picture.  But if we get that perfect flow orientation basically down the I-40 corridor from TN, we get higher amounts.  Right now the forecast orientation is more in line with B.

As of last night's run, the EURO has caught up...well, it is now running even hotter:

Sunday PM run EURO

While I will certainly be staying on top of this system and update as necessary, don't forget to join the ACA Facebook page for user-input information: Click HERE.

Bob