PackGrad05

Greg Fishel went all in on probabilistic forecasting and prefers showing probabilities of certain amounts rather than committing to a specific amount on a map.  I haven't seen his chat or forecast tonight, but last night he was just not that impressed.  
 

Southern Wake looks like it will get blanked...  or less than 1".  I'm just hoping the freezing rain stays away!

Just now, Brick Tamland said:

Good thing they are garbage. 

I don't think they are garbage.  I prefer them because they are more conservative than the outlandish global clown maps.  In past events, they have been more in the ballpark than globals.

SREF mean is 2" for RDU with MANY members lower than that...     Not looking great...lots of mixing and ice I'm afraid.

I'm more interested in short/medium range high-res models at this point than globals.  I think RAH and other areas may cut down their totals for central NC, or at least keep them the same. 

I predict I'll be watching the coefficient correlation on my Radarscope app for the mixing line quite a bit...  in southern Wake.

I think we see WWA for central/eastern counties later today.  I don't see Wake going under WSW

That NAM snowfall map posted above only goes through 1 PM Sunday.  Lots of QPF left after that time.

Alan Huffman tweeted about the NAM.  Iciest of the models and if it continues, he may have to change his call map to add more ice.  

3 minutes ago, Queencitywx said:

...you’ve somehow missed the Euro, FV3 GFS, The Canadian, The ICON and the UKMET?

Based on past systems, I'm giving preference to short/medium range models.  I think the NAM has a much better grasp, like it did with January 2017.

Still not a great run for Wake.  I could realistically see parts of Wake county get blanked on this.  I don't see anything proving otherwise based on soundings and model data.

Greg Fishel doing a live stream now and I completely agree with him.  Temperatures just aren't great for Wake.  Lots of rain.  Wet or slushy roads at times, not icy.  

I'd be surprised at more than 1" in Wake.

I'm pretty shocked at some of the high totals I see for Wake from some of the mets that are usually conservative.  I am not making a map because I really only forecast for the Wake area.  If I did, I would have 1-3" of snow for Wake, 3" in the NW and 1" in SE.  
My reasons:  Medium range models show temperatures borderline and warm in Central NC.  Soundings also show a very borderline event with a warm nose at times.  It is very hard to overcome the warm once it is there.  Mixing and wet snow will cut down on ratios considerably.  

Southern Wake still sees a changeover, as usual.

I'm interesting to see the next NAM run.  It does a much better job at the thermal profiles than GFS. 

Meteorology is different than modelology.  Models can say one thing, but looking at the actual pattern and understanding what can actually happen is why meteorologists have their job.

Surface temps as well as temperatures aloft have been suspect to me for RDU the entire week.  A clown map should be used to see where the heaviest snow will fall, while ignoring amounts.  

To me, central NC may see some snow, but will mostly be a cold rain with maybe some sleet pellets mixed in at times.  I would be SHOCKED for anyone in Wake to see more than 1 inch of snow on the ground, and you may want to snap a photo of it if it happens because the rain after will wash it away.        

1 minute ago, donsutherland1 said:

FWIW, even as it's really early to use the Bufkit soundings products, snow accumulations from Charlotte and Raleigh were approximately 15" and 8" respectively on the 18z GFS. More fell, but those were the accumulations (maximum temperature algorithm).

interesting!   Yeah I'm going to be looking at bufkit and sref plumes a lot in coming days.

Interesting point that I think is important to remember:
The model output for snow is how much snow will fall, not necessarily stick.  

A lot of this snow that sticks will be washed away when we get the changeover to rain.  I still think an extensive changeover to rain will occur east of 85.

Greg Fishel just said either a rain or snow event.  He isn't predicting a lot of mixing or in between.  

I mentioned this earlier but it got swamped in the discussion.  I think one of the reasons RAH isn't sold yet is surface temperatures.  The surface temps just don't look that great during the event.  There will be a lot of melting and cold rain.   The cold temps really don't get entrenched until Monday night/Tuesday.

Surface temps in Wake during the event do not look that great to me...  I think we will see a lot of melting of anything that falls.

With that said, the time frame between Monday-Wednesday is super cold.  So anything on the ground have a hard time melting and thawing until Wednesday/Thursday.

Geographically, you reach a limit to how far east the cold can go due to the CAD.  Unless you have an anomalously strong high, it won't really get past US-1

1 minute ago, BornAgain13 said:

Still looks like about a 10" Mean for MBY. Dont like the trend of the Euro and EPS overnight though...

To me, the maps look better and more expansive.

What don't you like?  The lower totals overall?  More realistic I think.  There WILL be mixing with this storm.

I didn't stay up so I'm just basing this on what I see this morning.

The strength of the CAD will be the one of the key players in this, the other being the mid-level warm air that will sneak in.  This will not be correctly modeled until 24-48 hours before go time probably.

Just now, Cold Rain said:

Euro control run.  It basically has 10+ totals over Wake.  More west.  Regular Euro kills us with WAA.

Thanks for clarifying!

I read these posts about Wake Co getting 10+ inches and central NC looking good this run...  THEN the map is posted.
Do y'all know where Wake is?  That EPS Clown map shows most of Wake in the 1-2" category.

With this looking like a CAD event with no real other source of cold air, east of US-1 looks like a cold rain..  All the models seem to be trending toward that sharp US-1 cut off.