SnowDawg

The way things are modeled right now, could this end up just being a thin strip of snow where the best rates and cold 850's overlap but rain on either side?

It's definitely a bit warmer but 850's are still below freezing across most of the region all day Thursday. Even on the mean, the surface temps reflect the precip being further north driving the temps down in the middle of the day Thursday. 18z 1PM Temps 12z

The QPF and snow total noticeably ticked up on the ensemble mean also.

EPS has maybe 5-6 members max with anything noteworthy in the SE.

Temps are not an issue, there just isn't any precip falling through the cold upper level air to help drive the boundary temps down. Suppression is still the issue, with the NS moving through too fast. Mid level winds turn WNW by 7 AM Thursday and shutoff moisture transport.

Euro moved back closer to a good solution by slowing down the NS energy, but still suppressed.

Don't know if anyone mentioned it or not but UKMET joined the suppressed camp also.

Canadian still playing along, albeit over a much smaller geographical area.

EPS does not look good at all... Changes in the Euro suite from 12z yesterday to today are subtle, but they are significant.

If this was an actual surface based LP storm in the gulf then I'd say suppression is a good thing because that's when we get our NW trends. But this is really just a thermal gradient pattern relying on SW flow to deliver moisture. Differences in the handling of the vort are what's causing the suppressed look.

Definitely has me concerned. It's 5 day verification scores are incredible right now and we get to around 5 days out tomorrow.

Every other model trends away from cutting off the energy in the SW and the Euro, which was leading the charge, trends toward it...

Yeah you're right. I was reacting purely to the GFS, which looks a little quick. And that's probably my favorite start time, IF it can come in heavy enough and lock in those morning low temps.

I've not posted in that thread yet because I refuse to participate in jinxing our best long range threat of the year lol

I would like the onset time to push further towards Thursday morning ideally to allow for some diurnal cooling as well as more time for CAA from the cold front that just passed. Starting around 10 pm Wed night, as others have mentioned, could result in wasting some snow on cooling the boundary.

Looks like the CMC, suppressed.

Decent jump on the GEFS mean as well. It also showed noticably less tendency to leave the wave behind on mean vorticity.

Nice step back in the right direction from the GFS. Would like to drive that frontal boundary just a tad further south before it stalls, but far too early for that level of detail. Given the pattern this is definitely the storm mode I'm hoping for. Stalled frontal boundary 100 miles or so south, with ample SW flow off the gulf, long duration event with no warm nose from an amped surface low. Given our lack of real cold air this year, I'd be scared of a big gulf low blasting us all with warm air. If it's gonna amp up, I hope it's late so it can get all the coastal folks and keep all of its warm air out over the Atlantic.

That's honestly amazing to me given the relative close proximity between us. Even the lower elevations here, down at the river near the SC border, have had at least 2 near 12 inch storms and a lot of 4 inch+ just since 2010. That Lee side screw zone running through GA/SC/NC is just a terrible thing.

Euro and EPS control continue to be in near lock step with one another. EPS mean is down just a bit, but at this range it's gonna jump around some so I wouldn't worry about it unless a downward trend over several runs shows up. But even then, all the ensembles spiraled downward in the medium range for this past weekend only to come back inside day 2-3.

I feel like in this pattern that is quite possibly the best look we could hope for board wide. Weak over running, followed by late coastal development, means literally no one has to deal with any warm air advection. If it bombed out earlier it'd screw the eastern zones, and if it lost the over running it'd screw us to the west. Can't imagine the mood on this board if such a region wide event were to go down.

Being in Athens at the time I hated that storm. Back in the Mtns now I'd love to have another go at it.

Yep, 850's and 925's both looked great throughout. No warm nose at all.

Possibly. I honestly don't know. People reference biases so much it's hard to tell which ones are real and which ones aren't anymore lol. There's definitely a window of potential, but as always we are threading some tiny needles.

GFS Ensemble largely supports the OP in the energy getting cutoff and left behind out west. 0z EPS for comparison. GFS very well may have the right idea here, it's just too early to tell.