06 March 2025
Rime Coated Northern Hardwoods
Eagle Knob of High Knob Massif
Cody Blankenbecler Image © All Rights Reserved
A windy and much milder than average start
to Meteorological Spring has featured frequent temperature swings.
2 March 2025
High Knob Lookout
Cody Blankenbecler Image © All Rights Reserved
Although several light snowfall and riming events...
6 March 2025
Eagle Knob of High Knob Massif
Cody Blankenbecler Image © All Rights Reserved
have occurred throughout the month of March...
21 March 2025
High Knob Lookout Peak
Snow-Rime Coated High Knob Massif
Cody Blankenbecler Image © All Rights Reserved
signs of spring are emerging at lower elevations.
22 March 2025
Signs of Spring In Lower Elevations
Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens)
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
Drier than average conditions have also been observed, despite a general 3.00" to 6.00" of
precipitation in the High Knob Massif area
so far during March (as of 25 March).
20 March 2025
Much drier conditions have been recorded to the south and east of the Cumberland Mountains, with March totals of 0.50" to 1.00" in portions of the New River, Roanoke, and Shenandoah
valleys of Virginia.
25 March 2025
Blacksburg NWS Forecast Office
25 March 2025
Lynchburg, Virginia
25 March 2025
Charlottesville, Virginia
Year-to-Date precipitation variations have been dramatic, ranging from less than 10.00" across many locations in central Virginia to 20.00" to 30.00" within the High Knob Massif area.
Amazing Wave Clouds
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
Strong winds blowing across the mountains through early spring have generated a significant amount of amazing wave-form clouds.
Waves dominant everything as we currently understand
it within space and time (spacetime). They comprise many different types of fields (magnetic, electric, chemical, etc.) and exist down to the quantum
level were wave-particule duality arises.
[Everything we are and do as humans can be traced out or described in wave-form, including the obvious such as the beating of your heart and the respirations of your lungs. While many waves travel across space and time, some are standing (vibratory) and pulsate. Bioelectric waves are key to understanding the hierarchical structure of life itself].
Beyond spacetime, where the known laws of physics are no longer applicable and become meaningless, it is not known if waves actually exist.
Amazing Wave Clouds
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
Meteorological Winter 2024-25
A brief recap of the December-February period reveals a mean upper air trough across the Great Lakes and Northeastern USA.
Northern Hemisphere
December 2024-February 2025
500 MB Mean Height Anomaly
Locations beneath the axis of this upper trough experienced excessive snowfall amounts, especially lee of Lake Ontario (where more than 200" fell).
Continental United States
December 2024-February 2025
500 MB Mean Height Anomaly
The southern-central Appalachians were positioned along the southern extent of this upper air troughing, with below average temperatures.
Continental United States
December 2024-February 2025
850 MB Mean Temperature Anomaly
Mean winter temperatures were the coldest of the past decade, with the winter season of 2014-15 being the previous one that was locally colder.
Continental United States
December 2024-February 2025
850 MB Vector Wind Anomaly
Northwesterly air flow was the most anomalous mean flow, with significant southeast transport of Great Lake moisture into the western front range
of the Appalachian mountains.
Continental United States
December 2024-February 2025
925 MB Vector Wind Anomaly
Heaviest winter season snowfall amounts of
80-160" fell from the High Knob Massif northeast along the eastern highlands of West Virginia into western Maryland.
A secondary snowfall maximum of 30-60" was observed along the Blue Ridge, while in between the mountains totals were generally 12" or less (7.9" at Tri-City Airport, Tennessee).
January 2025
Big Cherry Lake Basin
Wetland Valley Floor Temperature
The coldest (lowest) air temperature within the southern Appalachians was observed in Big Cherry Lake basin of the High Knob Massif for the second consecutive winter season (*).
28 March 2025
High Knob Massif
Big Cherry Lake Wetland Valley
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
The coldest observed temperature of -15.4 degrees below zero would have been -16 below had an official MMTS system been used (as found by comparison between a National Weather Service max-min temp system and identical HOBO sensor at Clintwood 1 W).
28 March 2025
High Knob Massif
Big Cherry Lake Wetland Valley
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
*The southern Appalachians are defined geologically
as the region lying south of the Roanoke Recess, or approximately south of 37.3 degrees latitude.
January 2025
Tri-City Airport, Tennessee
The lowest official temperature in the Tri-Cities, Tn., was nearly 20 degrees warmer by comparison.
9-26 January 2025
Big Cherry Lake Basin
Cold Air Pool Formation
Rapid temperature drops with descent into the basin occur during prime OLR nights, with approximately 1 degree (F) of drop for every 10 vertical feet of descent.
It is interesting to consider that the coldest location within Big Cherry Lake basin on the morning of 22 January 2025 was likely above the open expanse
of the lake itself.
28 March 2025
High Knob Massif
Water Elevation 3120 feet
Ice-Snow Free Big Cherry Lake
A deep snowpack covered the lake surface which has more than 55-acres at its southern end with a wide-open sky view factor ideal for the strongest outgoing longwave radiation (**).
**The min near the head of the basin floor, in forest edge, was -12 degrees below zero. I suspect that air temps along the basin floor varied from -10 degrees in woods at its head to as bitter as -25 below over the open lake itself.
28 March 2025
High Knob Massif
Big Cherry Lake Wetland Valley
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
Implications of such bitter air in Big Cherry Lake basin are many, not least of which is this makes it a refuge for Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) trees threatened by adelgids across the region.
Air temperatures of -10 to -20 degrees (F)
below zero are required to kill adelgids.
28 March 2025
Big Cherry Lake of High Knob Massif
Wild Northern Character of Wetlands
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
Although many older trees have died in past years, many trees do remain alive. There are no signs of Hemlock Wooly Adelgids in colder portions of the basin. A vast array of young hemlocks are growing throughout the basin and can act as a repository for the surrounding area/region when adelgids kill nearly all trees in warmer locations.
01 April 2025
High Knob Massif
Big Cherry Lake Wetland Valley
Jessica Bier & Wayne Browning iPhone Photograph
This section is under construction.