SnowDawg

Genuinely asking, how many winters has our area ever gone wire to wire with no kind of synoptic event, even if just a minor marginal temps slop fest? It maybe selfish, but living where I do, fropa and flow snow is never going to get me excited. My town has never had a winter without measurable snowfall on record, and I am cautiously optimistic that this streak will live on.

Obviously the upcoming pattern in the medium range isn't some honking SE snow pattern but I generally like the look at least for our area. Definitely gonna be some cutters but I think the TN valley/upper SE/southern apps are in as good a spot as can be given the background state this winter. Get one of these cutters to track into the 50/50 region to give the SE ridge a shove and get the Arctic boundary just far enough south to put us on the cold side of a trailing overrunning event.

Been a nice heavy flizzard the last few hours. Still a bit above freezing so only sticking to elevated surfaces. Other parts of the county though already with a nice dusting heading towards a half inch.

Spitting some snow every now and then here. Good sign that maybe we can get a good shower or two tonight if things really get cranking. Never can tell down this way, but sometimes if the flow is really strong we can squeeze out a good dusting.

Enjoy it fellas! I'm hoping to see some flurries/showers break containment and get down my way this evening/tonight when the forcing is at its best.

Some pics from earlier. Some of the biggest pieces were between qtr and half dollar size, but it was mostly pea to marble. Best dusting I've had all year lol

One of the stronger hail storms we've had in years here south of Clayton. Just absolutely dumped pea mixed with some qtr size for a solid 5+ minutes.

That sucks. I figured there'd be some here or there that missed out as well but there was impressively good coverage a cross North GA as a whole. I know I've seen accumulation reports from Southern Gwinnett and other parts of the metro, the Athens area, the southern mtns in Dawson and Forsyth, lots of West GA, and all the northern mtn counties but mine. Hopefully the back half of winter has hope for something bigger.

From what I can tell, basically every county in North GA from the Atlanta area up got anywhere from mood flakes to an inch, except for mine. I try to keep my emotions out of this most the time, but this one stings lol.

Very jealous of Northern Alabama today. Still holding out hope for later but very skeptical of being able to overcome 30+ point dewpoint depressions.

Saw a bit of a flizzard this morning around 4 AM but has otherwise been dry. Down to 9 degrees. Based on forecast and modeling, I'm expecting it not to drop much further and just hover around 10 the rest of the day, before making a run at below zero tonight.

Man if that warmth aloft is overdone even in the slightest, this could turn into a really nice snow event all things considered. NAM now showing around a qtr inch or more QPF area wide for Tuesday.

12z NAM showing over a tenth of an inch QPF wintry mix this run over NE GA. If the 850's could just be colder it'd probably be all snow.

Through 126 looks like the West/Amped trend has stopped for now. Vort very slightly east and weaker. TPV lobe in SE Canada is stronger and may help with confluence, but it's alignment and placement is different from previous runs. We'll see where this goes. Still very different from Euro solution.

Only on operationals. Ensembles still have it on the table. No way to have any feeling for the trailing storm until we can get a handle on the first one.

Snow mean back up on the GEFS. Interested to look at the individual members. Through 7 am Christmas Eve.

It largely held serve with the big picture but the westward/amped trend needs to stop. Plenty of time for it to windshield wiper back. Still miles better than the Canadian and Euro look.

One big difference that stands out between GFS and CMC is in how it handles that PV lobe as it ejects from western Canada. GFS splits into two systems, the first of which aids in confluence over the NE forcing the second wave to dig further SW. The Canadaian keeps the lobe intact which lends itself to the big amped lakes system.

I could be wrong but this feels like the first Miller A/B hybrid that we've dealt with in a while. With the hybrid we're basically trying to perfectly time a clipper phasing with a suppressed southern stream wave. 06z GFS really shows where the speed of both systems matters for the final outcome. The southern wave gets too far ahead so the phase is too late. Also just as the Euro showed a couple days ago, the clipper portion alone is enough to bring light to moderate snow to the western side of the forum if it digs enough.

GEFS individuals still showing a very wide range of outcomes from rain, to dry, from light snow, to big snow. I think it's safe to say that the Mid-Atlantic to the NE is probably more favored and the SE maybe moreso with the trailing wave, but it's clear if the cards fall our way we're in the game for both.

Overall QPF went up on the mean and snow went slightly down for most. Looking at the individuals there are a few more that get too amped up too quick and we rain. Small potatoes at this range, all in all still a great signal on the GEFS. And still showing potential past this 23rd threat as well.

GEFS looks good to me. Minimal changes, maybe actually small improvements.

Yeah slightly flatter ridge and an earlier phase turning the trough negative quicker.

PNA ridge and it's effect on the angle of the jet will largely decide how far the wave will dig. Need the jet to be aligned more out of the NNW than it is on the Euro. There's certainly more pieces involved like the speed of the southern piece of energy, and the confluence/blocking over the NE not allowing a weakness for it to slide east, but the PNA ridge certainly feels like the most important ingredient.

Beautiful to see that short wave dig further south and west like I was hoping to see when I posted last night. The ensembles have had a storm signal there from the beginning. And the Euro has been all in on a monster storm as well. So I'm convinced there will be a big storm on the east coast in that time frame, the question for us will be can it dig far enough to get that ULL under us.