Joe Clark

#facts. Its exhausting.....

Yes. Seen it a thousand times before.

Until the Euro gets on board with the Tuesday system I'm skeptical. I've seen plenty of times where the Euro lost a storm and was on its own and then watched as everything else caved...

Been trending colder the last couple of runs.... overdone?

Agreed, don't start a thread yet.... usually when its too early its the kiss of death.

NWS RAH is showing some interest in this time period as well. LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 320 AM Thursday... Temperatures will depend on the exact location of a frontal zone meandering over the SE US, with additional CAD conditions very possible. Finally, rain should be the primary precip type through at least Thursday. Thereafter, the uncertain arrival of Canadian air into the area will likely hold off until Friday/Saturday, which would yield increasing chances for wintry precip as additional moisture overspreads the area from the SW. Stay tuned.

From the Afternoon RAH disco: Long Term: The forecast really gets interesting during the late week period(late Wednesday night through Friday) with high forecast uncertainty wrt to just how much amplification of the cold upper trough will occur over the central and eastern US via additional energy/northern stream energy diving south out of SW Canada. If some of the stronger/deeper H5 height patterns verify, a developing coastal storm tracking along the SE Coast, coupled with the antecedent cP airmass in place, could support the potential for some frozen precip across the climatologically favored areas of the NW Piedmont. Evaluation of the latest 00z/15 Grand Ensemble guidance(100 ensemble members consisting of the CMC, EC, and GEFS members) indicates that ~20 percent of the combined members show measurable snow over the northern Piedmont, with a little over half of those snowy members indicating light snow amounts of 1 inch or less. With that said, these probabilities and related p-type forecast and amounts will without a doubt fluctuate over the next several days.

RAH is showing some interest in the weekend system: .LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/... As of 220 AM Monday... Expect quiet weather on Wednesday with little synoptic action across the region. An upper trough over the Ohio River Valley Thursday morning will dive across the Carolinas Thursday night. While a surface low will eventually develop, this low appears likely to develop offshore and should have little impact on central NC. However, wraparound moisture could result in a passing shower Thursday night. There is still not enough confidence to include pops in the forecast at this time. Behind the deepening surface low, a ridge of high pressure will extend down the East Coast on Friday. By Saturday evening the GFS and ECMWF agree that there should be precipitation over central North Carolina, but from wildly different systems. The GFS shows a surface low move southeast from Chicago to West Virginia before developing a second low off the NC coast, while the ECMWF has a low move across Alabama and Georgia which then strengthens near the Outer Banks before continuing east. There is definitely a chance of precipitation through the weekend and precipitation type could be an issue, although the temperature profiles would look much different depending on which model verifies. The highest chances for precipitation appear to be Saturday night, although precipitation would likely start during the day on Saturday and linger into Sunday. Temperatures will be below normal through the extended forecast.

Updated Disco out of RAH: .NEAR TERM /THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH TONIGHT/... As of 955 AM Thursday... ...No changes to the current Winter Storm Warning and Winter Weather Advisories. Icing has been limited to mostly elevated surfaces, thus far. Most of the significant icing reports of 0.1 to 0.18 have been from Forsyth, Guilford, Granville, Vance, and Person Counties (in the heart of the Winter Storm Warning). The temperatures have been rather marginal again, with mostly readings in the 30-32 range in the Warning Area, thus limiting the icing especially on roads. The temperatures bottomed out around daybreak and have been steady or slowly been creeping back toward 32 in the Warning area. However, there continued to be a feed of dry and cold air from northern and central VA into north-central NC. This is courtesy of the parent high pressure of nearly 1030 mb located over NY/NJ, extending south deep into our Piedmont damming region. Low level near surface trajectories continue to be directed from where temperatures were in the mid 20s in central VA. Radar showed showery precipitation with large gaps in the heavier rates, reducing to drizzle in the gap areas. Thus, it will take a much of the day for the ice to reach Warning criteria on average (0.25 or greater) in the heart of the Warning. That will be challenging given the solar insolation and the temperatures so close to 32. Some of the heavier showers will contain some thunderstorms (as there is some instability noted aloft). In addition, some ice pellets will be mixed with the heavier rain rates in the showers. It appears that the icing will be a self limiting event in the Advisory area (Albemarle to Raleigh to near Roanoke Rapids) where readings should teeter between 32-33 with the CAA at the surface and the solar insolation / higher rain rates offsetting and limiting icing to north facing and elevated surfaces. Models continue to show a lull late morning and much of the afternoon in the west or northwest, with the steady and heavier precipitation shifting into the east. Then, another wave aloft will bring renewed precipitation later this afternoon and evening. Temps should still be 32 or 31 over portions of the Warning area, thus additional ice accrual is expected. The Advisory area is in question unless we can tap into the low level cold air a bit more in the next few hours The flash flooding risk appears lower now - given the heavy QPF will likely be in the south and east (lower end of the main stem rivers), with lighter QPF of 0.25 to 0.50 over much of the Piedmont.

Thunder down in High Point as well. Car thermometer indicated 47F.

Sleet near downtown GSO.

06Z NAM, and the 00z Canadian still showing frozen precip for central NC and points north...

18z GFS and GFS v16 sticking to their guns. Another big hit for central NC Wed into Thurs.