PackGrad05

I believe one of the main waves is still over the north pacific....so that will limit the amount of accurate data you get

16 minutes ago, Brick Tamland said:

If the rates are good enough it doesn't matter. 

If the rates are good enough, it will accumulate, but turn into a slushy mess and be gone as soon as rates let up...
If rates aren't good enough, it is a rain/snow mix.     I'd love to see cold air trend a little better.

Temperatures are iffy with this.    Would be a rain/snow mix as it stands now....

Based on current models, accumulation would be tough.  Several warm and SUNNY days ahead of this will limit initial accumulations and especially on roads (good thing)

WRAL mentioned the evening runs showed a little more wintry weather, so something to keep an eye on...  But they also mentioned that the day before would be close to 70 so it would be hard for anything to stick.

Regardless, we still have days for this to trend better.  Unlike the last systems which were more the beginning of the weekend, this is more of a sunday/monday event.  so we are still at the 5-6 day mark.

WWA currently doesn't include Wake..   But the RAH discussion states:

Given the aforementioned setup...
where the subfreezing temps already exist north of the Albemarle-
Sanford-Franklin line... it appears that is the area that will have
the best chance to see a brief period of light freezing rain before
waa allows precip to change to all rain. 

RAH issued a hazardous weather outlook for the chance of a brief wintry mix Monday morning...

However, I just looked at the HRRR, NAM 3K, and they show just rain...  temperature above freezing by the time precip arrives.

RGEM still shows a brief period.

Maybe I’m more of an optimist, but for ab event coming Saturday night/Sunday morning, there is still a good amount of time to watch.  

Suppressed is good at this point.  Rather it be that way than too far NW.

Certainly don't want anything that will cause a bunch of issues, ie. ice.

The good thing is we have several days where the temperature does not get below freezing and even reaches the 60s.  That will keep road temps up quite a bit for a while at least.

Yes, freezing rain accrual is a self-limiting process UNLESS you have a constant, reinforcing supply of shallow cold air...  In other words around here, you need a strong and persistent CAD for the duration that doesn't erode or retreat.

Thanks.  Didn’t Realize the brief duration of warmup until I just checked the forecast.   

14 minutes ago, BullCityWx said:

…..that’s not how that works 

Explain?

Antecedent temperatures will be really warm.   Ground and road will warm up quick.   

Don’t fret too much by looking at long range.   Remember the long range showed this being a monster storm for us.   Things change.   
we still have a good amount of time.   Yes it does get more difficult but February and even March have produced big ones.   

RAH discussion looks fine to me.  I never really expected more than an inch here in southern Wake.  We will see what happens.

3K NAM looks decent for Wake.  Nice 6-8 hour period of light snow, taken verbatim.  Granted, boundary layer temps are above freezing at the onset so a lot of it melts on contact...
I think an inch on the ground would be a win for Wake.

Snow will likely still be falling at the end of that HRRR run.  That won't represent storm totals.

So it looks like a ~6 hour period of light snow for central NC.

I put "bad" and "good" in quotation marks because it is subjective (whether you want snow or don't want snow).  
I just meant that sometimes we praise the NAM when it shows what we want, but discuss how it is inaccurate when it doesn't show desired outcomes.

I think the last few weeks has shown that the NAM is not reliable at all.  Brad P even mentioned concerns about its reliability over the last few years since they are transitioning to FV3 and HRRR.  
If you throw out the "bad runs", you also need to throw out the "good" runs. 

Just now, wake4est said:

but it's fast and light and drops about 1 inch

Verbatim it shows 5-6 hours of snow...  That's a nice event for our area, even if it is an inch or so.

5 minutes ago, wake4est said:

Oof. Through 44 the HRRRRRR is doing well for the Piedmont, complete whiff for the Triangle.

I'm watching it and that band pivots right through central NC.

WRAL's first hand-drawn call map for this system.

Cue the local mets showing trends decreasing with euro ensemble probabilities.