Tar Heel Snow

Yeah. This was always a long shot, hopefully the NAM hangs in there. If not, I guess it's just kicking the can for RDU. One of these days we'll cash in again.

2 hours ago, packbacker said:

Well this sucks.  After the past two winters and watching Atlanta get 6”+ a few weeks ago to have this amount to nothing...definitely will be the worst winter in my lifetime.  No torch in sight either.  Ugghhh

year after year it's the same.

1 hour ago, packbacker said:

Been almost 3 years since Raleigh’s last snow.  I got 4” and I think ColdRain got fringed.  

Yep. From Raleigh, go to school in CH. It's incredibly frustrating being in the raleigh bubble year after year.

Just now, FallsLake said:

The mountains are definitely our enemy with clippers. For our area (Central / eastern NC), we tend to do better than folks to the south and west of us. Two reasons:

1) Biggest reason is the trajectory of the precipitation over elevated areas to our NW. **draw a line from RDU NW and the elevation of areas through VA and WV are mostly in the 3000 - 4000 range. Draw a line from Charlotte down to Greenville SC NW and you have 5000 - 6000 foot mountains. Basically they have more of a rain (snow) shadow effect.

2) Also for clippers it's just better to be farther north and east because of the traversal of the wave as it goes from NW to SE.   

Thank you! Makes sense. 

3 hours ago, FallsLake said:

As I said before, in this pattern of suppression we may have to pin our hopes on a clipper. Usually clippers stay just a little too far north for many on this board but with these massive highs and deep troughs we can now score. The last two runs of the GFS show something at ~ day 9. It's definitely too far out to get excited about but I believe this more that a big storm showing 5 days out.

6z GFS (similar to the 0z):

 

Interesting. I'm still learning a lot of this stuff, so if you could answer this that'd be great, but don't clippers usually not pan out well for us because of the mountains? Or is it something else? Thanks!

Watching the snow all over the country on the today show isn’t making these squashed storms any more fun.

tbh idk why I check this stuff so often lol. Only leads to disappointment. It’s funny I can vacation somewhere else with snow but it’s just not the same as seeing it at home.

Just now, HKY_WX said:

You could see this coming based on the upper low track. Pretty classic one for the northern deep south and mountains/foothills. It's really tough to get a snow or ice storm outside of the hills without more sfc cold than this system had.

Absolutely! Makes all the sense in the world. Hopes weren't too high until I saw it falling like crazy this afternoon and even begin to pile up a bit. Seeing all of this snow in Alabama/Georgia doesn't exactly help either, but so it goes! Happy for everyone for whom this worked out. Cheers!

2 minutes ago, HKY_WX said:

Well my thinking from a few days ago worked out. This will likely be a major event (anything 6in+ in HKY in my estimation) in hickory after all said and done. Currently over 4 inches and this doesn't look to stop anytime soon. Boundary layer temps favored the colder NAM and so i'm thinking 6 to 10 inches in Hickory before all is said and done.

Thanks for your content the past couple of days. Line doesn't seem to show much of a sign of coming back over SE Orange County, so I think I'm about ready to call this one. Too much rain on the ground anyway at this point. Enjoy! Hopefully next time we get a more eastern track.

We've been full on rain here going on 2 hours. If this had been snow wow we'd be raking it in. Been really rough over here. Everything that did accumulate is still here, not sure why it's so warm.

sleet pellets mixing back in, as well as what appears to be rain. Oi. I sense a bad trend coming. Right after some big flakes were returning and looking like they wanted to stick. Temps finally cooperating down here, guess not up above.

1 minute ago, griteater said:

The 3km NAM has convective shower/thunderstorm cells rolling through SE GA into S SC, so the model is indicating that those storms could rob the moisture transport into central NC...we'll see

Much appreciated

Allan Huffman on twitter just showed a map that looks like a thunderstorm could cause a gap in precipitation for a solid chunk of the NC piedmont tonight. What does that mean? Seems like the 18z NAM has it too? Not a met, so not sure how that works. Interesting, albeit sad phenomenon if it were to happen today.

Not sticking here anymore, but I don't even care. Just beautiful.

Large, swirling flakes falling in Chapel Hill. Gradually faster and harder rates

I love seeing these deep south places finally getting their long-overdue big snows!

But the jerk in me is frustrated that year after year RDU is out of it, only to come so tantalizingly close. It's early in the season though, and thankfully this isn't life and death!

The dreaded cold rain is steady in Chapel Hill 

NWS Raleigh: "555 am... Regional radar & observations show snow across many locations in the Southeast including those that typically do not receive snow such as coastal TX, LA, MS and AL. Anomalous weather upstream often precedes unusual weather here. Stay alert!"

2 minutes ago, Regan said:

Well, despite the models last night, NWS is saying nada for Raleigh basically. 

Yeah, unfortunately these models have kept the cold air to the west, but what else is new? It was always a long shot, but I just hope to see flakes in the air with no rain at some point in the next 36 hours purely for the visual!

I'm all for these "trends," let's hope! Words from Fishel: