We have a cold front coming through this morning bringing with it some clouds and perhaps a flurry or two. Most of the snow will be seen up to the northwest of Nashville from Hartsville and Portland over to Jamestown and Burkesville, Ky. The clouds will clear away later today on a strong NW wind; don’t expect much of warm up today; we’ll only see highs a few degrees warmer than the morning lows. Below are the forecast highs for today.

As skies clear tonight we’ll see the temperatures drop down into the teens. Tomorrow we’ll have some sunshine to start the day but clouds coming in and the threat of some snow arrives late Wednesday night. Across the southern counties it will likely start as a snow/sleet mix. During the day on Thursday we’ll watch the temperatures get above freezing and the snow/sleet mix change over to rain. As the system starts to taper off with the precipitation it’ll change back over to snow Thursday night.

This is how it looks right now. This forecast is subject to change as we closer to the event. As usual, the rain/snow line on Wed. night to Friday morning straddles the middle Tennessee area.

The cold air is not going away, as another cold front will keep highs only in the mid 30s on Tuesday followed by teens on Wednesday morning. As for Wednesday night after midnight, that’s when the tricks start!

I think Justin did a great job of explaining the ins and outs of trying to forecast past 2 days with the models. Keep all of his intelligent comments in mind as I give you the latest.

The models are all in agreement on the formation of a Gulf low that would bring precip in after midnight Wednesday night. It should begin as snow or a snow sleet mixture, but then change to a mix of rain/sleet/snow during the daytime hours as temps warm to upper 30s. Then the precip will change back to snow again Thursday night through Friday morning. This forecast is for 2 and 1/2 to 3 days out, so bear in mind that things could change. As Justin says, a lot depends on the track of the low.

That’s the way it looks for now, and we’ll update with the latest day by day.

Most of the computer models we use to create a forecast are run four times per day. In this difficult weather pattern, the same model might yield four different solution in 24 short hours! The models have oscillated from a cold to warm solution between this morning and midday. Disappointing for snow lovers, but hope is not lost. It’s important not to get caught up in the run-to-run details and keep your eye on the big picture.

Below is tomorrow’s predicted upper air pattern. Two things to point out: a big disturbance diving through the Midwest will bring cold northwest winds and reinforce the chill tomorrow. We might even squeeze out a few flurries. The second, more important feature is off the Southern California coast in the image below. That upper air disturbance will swing east and cause a surface low to develop late Wednesday through Thursday. The low pressure will pass south of Tennessee but the exact track remains uncertain. The particular path of that surface low will determine what type of precipitation we get on Thursday.

The late morning model runs suggest that the surface low pressure will move from Houston to Birmingham. That’s farther north (and warmer) than the early morning models had predicted. Again, it’s important to not get caught up in the run-to-run details of the computer models. The upper air disturbance that will kick start our mid-week system is roughly 2,000 miles away! I think we’ll see more model flip-flopping in the next few days…so stay tuned to the blog and our television forecasts for the latest thinking.

We’ve got morning temperatures that haven’t been this low since Feb.19th of last year, almost a year ago. We have lots of sunshine this to start the day with along with a southwest wind, this should warm us up toward 40 degrees. A few clouds coming in later today as we’ll have mostly clouds skies overnight along with a southwest wind turning north by tomorrow morning. Don’t be surprised to see a few flurries by tomorrow morning, especially up on the plateau where it might equal to a dusting through the day. Still looking like Wednesday night into Thursday the best chance of snow yet this winter shows up. Cold week ahead, I expect today will be the warmest day of the whole week as go into February. Below are the forecasted highs for today:

In all the talk about snow chances for later this week (see previous entry), we didn’t talk about tonight’s cold. Look at the 8pm temps below! We are on our way to low teens in many areas of north Middle Tennessee with possibly a few single digit temps in northeast Middle Tennessee. When you send the kids out to the bus stop tomorrow morning (if their school is open), make sure they are bundled up, hat and gloves, as well. Same for adults!

By the way, we’ve had a few schools close or call for a late opening in east Middle Tennessee. To see them as well as the ones closed due to the flu and illness CLICK HERE or go to wkrn.com and click on “Winter School Closings”.

TNZ008-025-027-028-033-062-065-066-290300-
NORTH MIDDLE TENNESSEE

CITY SKY/WX TMP DP RH WIND PRES REMARKS
NASHVILLE CLEAR 21
DICKSON CLEAR 17
PORTLAND CLEAR 15
CLARKSVILLE CLEAR 18
LEBANON CLEAR 19
SMYRNA CLEAR 21
MURFREESBORO CLEAR 20
COOKEVILLE MOCLDY 17
LIVINGSTON PTCLDY 14
GALLATIN CLEAR 17
CROSSVILLE LGT SNOW 15

TNZ061-075-076-078-094-096-097-290300-
SOUTH MIDDLE TENNESSEE

CITY SKY/WX TMP DP RH WIND PRES REMARKS
LAWRENCEBURG CLEAR 21
LEWISBURG CLEAR 21
TULLAHOMA CLEAR 20
WINCHESTER PTCLDY 22
MCMINNVILLE CLEAR 17
COLUMBIA CLEAR 23
SHELBYVILLE CLEAR 23

Thanks to Julie Myrick for this picture from Lafayette, TN this morning.

As mentioned previously, the east and northeast sections of Middle Tennessee saw a little snow flying in the air and on the ground this morning.

Now, we all know that the models can flip flop quite a bit when you try to forecast out 3-7 days. However, the two main longer range models are showing a chance for an accumulating snow during the second half of the work week. The AVN/GFN shows a Gulf low that could bring us snow Wednesday night through Thursday. The CMC or Canadian model develops snow with that same Gulf low, but not until Thursday through Friday A.M. with a possible mixture of snow/sleet rain south of Nashville.

I’m a little like some of you, I’ll believe it when I see it. However, those are the possibilities as of now.
We’ll update this as we get closer, but we know that the readers of this blog want to know the latest.

Picture thanks to Christina in northeast Middle Tennessee at 8:45am this morning

National Weather Service Radar at 9:20am Sunday morning showing snow east of Nashville

Davis here, blogging from home:

As usual what snow we have seen has been in the eastern sections of Middle Tennessee. The most will be in an area bounded by Lafayette, Celina, Gainesboro, Livingston, Byrdstown area of northeast Middle Tennessee where some may see a whitening of the ground. If we get any more pictures, I will post them this afternoon. As usual pictures can go to weather@wkrn.com.

The big word is cold! We will not get above freezing today, and if we drop to tonight’s predicted low of 16 at Nashville airport, it will be the lowest temp so far this season. The lowest we’ve seen in Nashville is 17 on December 8, 2006.

Areas north and east of Nashville could drop to 12-15 tonight.