ALERT For Flooding and High Water Levels Will Continue Through Monday Morning For Headwater Creeks – With Rises On Rivers Through Today
As of 5:00 AM Monday a general 2.00″ to 4.00″+ of rain have fallen across the area, with strong rises and local flooding ongoing. Extreme caution is advised.
Big Stony Creek was 2.2 feet above flood stage and rising as of 4:30 AM Monday. Rain totals up to 4.47″ have occurred at upper elevations in the High Knob Massif (as of 5:00 AM).
Thousands of residents are also without electricity due to damaging winds Sunday evening. The most concentrated damage occurred in northern Wise and Dickenson counties when the apparent phasing of a traveling atmospheric wave with stationary orographic waves produced a downward transfer of very strong winds to the surface.
*ALERT For Heavy Rainfall And The Potential Of Strong To Severe Thunderstorms From Sunday Evening Into Monday Morning (12-13 April)
An outbreak of severe thunderstorms across the Deep South will need to be closely monitored through Sunday into early Monday with respect to local impacts on the Mountain Empire.
Interactive 500 MB Streamline Flow Field
The GFS Model has been as consistent as any model can be regarding the development of a band of flooding rains from the Cumberland Mountains southwest across the Cumberland Plateau into middle Tennessee.
Note that the new mid-day Sunday update of the NAM 12 KM Model has now come more in line with a heavy-excessive rainfall corridor like the GFS, but shifted a little northwest of the new GFS axis.
The high resolution WRF Model is a compromise between the new runs of the NAM and GFS, with heavy rainfall across the Mountain Empire.
The European, ICON, and Canadian models also forecast heavy rainfall, but less excessive than the GFS with more run-to-run variations than shown by the GFS as well during the past several days.
The Sunday AM run of the GEM (Canadian) Model is most like the NAM and previous runs of the GFS.
The Bottom Line…Above average uncertainty exists in total rainfall amounts into Monday, but all models agree on the potential for heavy amounts. The final true solution will be in large part dependent upon the severe outbreak across the Deep South and how it unfolds to impact the southern Appalachians and adjacent foothills.
ALERT For Strong SSE-SSW Winds Sunday Night Into Monday…Especially At Higher Elevations And In Mountain Wave Zones
Wind gusts of 40-60+ mph will be likely at upper elevations and within local lower elevations within typical mountain wave breaking zones to the NW-NNE of higher mountains across southwestern Virginia and northeast Tennessee.
Interactive 850 MB Streamline Flow Field
Otherwise, gusty to strong winds will be likely across the entire area.
Wet Snowfall Potential?
A wave of low pressure moving along the boundary that stalls following this outbreak of severe spring weather will need to be closely monitored by late Tuesday into Wednesday (14-15 April) for the potential of a band of wet snowfall.