***FRIDAY EVENING UPDATE***

***FRIDAY EVENING***Hello everyone. Sorry for the delay in posting. I wanted to keep last nights post because I also wanted to keep he watch/warning map but didn't want to take the time to repost it. So what's the latest thinking? Well, the NWS has issued Heavy Snow Warning/Winter Storm Warnings for what seems like everyone surrounding Chattanooga. Ha! Even North GA/AL are under advisories/warnings. Locally, up to 2" is being forecast, but I'm going to tell you right now that's not happening...definately not in Valley locations, and I'm not even expecting that up here in the mountains. Perhaps a dusting or so...but radar trends haven't been too encouraging here lately and unless this cold air starts coming in quicker and more precipitation breaks out to our South, I just don't see much. So I'm going against the locals and NWS and saying not much will fall. I could be wrong, but we'll see. As always, these type of storms can be hard to predict.

I'll post later on tonight if more developments occur.

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***THURSDAY EVENING POST***

Good evening everyone. As expected, the models CONTINUE to display poor agreement, and this continues to make for a not so confident forecast. While they are coming into better agreement, especially compared to the last few days, there are still some pretty significant differences that would make a world of difference for some people. There may even perhaps be a blizzard for folks to our north from Kentucky into Ohio, but for us locally, the chance for at least some flurries or very light snow showers exist. The question, as always, is "how much will fall?" And unfortunately, I still cannot answer that question with a great amount of confidence. It is interesting that the 18z NAM and GFS models shifted the low a little bit' Eastward, and I would be very interested to see if the NAM goes totally to a track that would take the low East of the Appalachians. As I stated last night, this model was consistent in taking the low West of the Appalachians right over us. I'll be watching that closely.
However, the deformation zone, or axis of heaviest snowfall associated with low pressure systems in the winter, still looks to be way off to our West, but we might be left with some residual moisture that could fall as some flurries/very light snow IF, and I mean IF, the cold air can come in quick enough. I am confident that as least flurries will fall, if not late Friday night, sometime early Saturday morning. However, amounts look light at best. 18z NAM model backed off on the amount of accumulative snowfall compared to it's previous 12z run...with barely 0.1" of equivalent liquid being recorded, which using an 8:1 ratio, would only be around 1/2" at most, and that to me is even too much. But we'll see as these type of systems sometimes bring some surprises. The GFS is very similar btw.

So that's the way things look as of this evening...which isn't too different from last night. But as always i'll keep an eye on it for ya. Will be interesting to see how much snow places like Memphis get.
BTW: there is a winter storm watch for parts of the central/northern Cumberland Platue, and all of Middle TN. Included in this post is a look at the current watches/warnings. Just click on it to get a bigger picture.