Rain “Categorical”

Current Radar 

More Rain Tonight

So far, just 0.07″ in the official rain can (through 2:53 PM), but that’s only going to increase.

NWS has our precip chances at “categorical,” which is code for

Light/Moderate rainfall will continue tonight and last through the weekend.

As for temps, a front is draped across west Tennessee. We’re on the “warm” side of it.

This front is super slow. Eventually it’ll shove across Sunday, and keep temps in the 50°s.

Sunday: Rain. Gross. Wake Up 53°, High 58°

This light/moderate rain will continue through the day. Between 1″ and 2″ total is expected.

Expect rain the entire game.

Rain Monday-Tuesday, Highs 61° and 60°

Rain should continue Monday, but we should see a little break during the day, before it picks up again Monday night. Rain will end sometime Tuesday.

What About This Mention of Snow?

Settle down, fish.

Let’s carefully listen to what NWS has actually said here.

It’s based on the GFS/DGEX models, and even those look unsupportive of even a little precip, much less snow.

Note that the Euro model has us high and dry.

There are several other conditions. If the GFS/DGEX is right, if there’s a “possible closed low” (which models do not indicate now), if the timing is right – arriving during the wee hours of the morning, when temperatures are low, there is a “slight chance of a rain/snow mixture after midnight Thursday night into at least the mid morning hours on Friday.” That is to say, if all those things happen, which seems pretty unlikely, we would still only get a slight chance of a rain/snow mixture. And if any of those assumptions are wrong, the conclusions are wrong.

I went ahead and looked further at the most snow happy of all the models, the GFS, and pulled up the forecast sounding for midnight Thursday night and 6 AM Friday morning.

So why did I write all this to say it’s not going to snow?

I wanted to nip it in the bud.

It’s snow silly season. We have arrived at that time of year where some models will spit out snow solutions for 5+ days away, and few of them verify, meaning, they’re very often wrong. Forecasting snow in a mid-latitude place like Nashville is very difficult even 12 hours before the event. There are too many variables in play and the science isn’t good enough. It’s a lot like betting on picking the exact score of a basketball game that hasn’t yet started.

And this event — it doesn’t even really show snow.

But, it’s important that you have all the information. Please don’t be this guy this winter:

This website supplements @NashSevereWx on Twitter, which you can find here.