NorthHillsWx

And to make matters worse all of the rain it’s showing now is from afternoon popup storms which are highly variable and not super beneficial for regional drought relief. Thunderstorm roulette in the afternoon is not where you wanna be to break severe+ drought conditions

As temps and sun angle increase through spring, so does evaporation. Also, vegetation coming out of dormancy increases water uptake from soil. So 1/2” in winter goes a lot further than 1/2” in summer. Couple this with increasing water usage for lawns, In other words, we’re in trouble with a rapidly worsening drought. This is when we will see lake levels start to plummet. We need repeated widespread 1-3” rains to make a serious dent at this point

This has gotta be one of the warmest march’s in history. We get a 1-2 day cooldown then right back to 80s or even 90. No spring this year we’ve jumped into a summer pattern

0.31” here from yesterdays storms

Drought going to worsen to “Extreme” category for much of NC given recent trends and where we already are. Truly could be a historic summertime drought unless El Niño effects hurry up. Scary going into summer with drought status where it is

Bottomed out right below freezing, 31.9. Looking across central NC looks like most areas (besides RDU) got below freezing with some areas seeing sub-28 degree freezes. Pretty big temp bust by NWS I don’t think anyone was explicitly forecast to get below freezing. That’s now the 4th 32 or lower reading this month IMBY

Topped out at 88.5 yesterday. The pollening has begun

Clouds moved in again and prevented us from bottoming out, only got to 34.3 here

Down to 28.8 for the low but clouds kept us in check, we hit that at 4 am and slowly rose to 30.6 by sunrise. Clear sky last night and we were headed to lower 20s

Down to 38 already. Think mid 20s looks likely

@eyewall I thought the same thing when I walked out yesterday morning and posted here. It didn’t feel like a volatile airmass especially with the midday timing. Unless it’s a derecho or there isn’t any morning convection at all midday almost never works for severe. I never saw the sun yesterday btw.

This is EXCELLENT. The last thing he says is why this shouldn’t have been a 4 though: “There were a lot of questions, a lot of failure modes going into it”. If that was the case, the upgrade was not warranted because a level 4 risk states “high confidence” as a prerequisite to issue. If this had been kept at a level 3 overnight due to those questions the public would not have reacted the way they did and the perceived bust would be much less significant. Just my 0.02 but rarely so we see a day 2 level 4 and it seemed so preemptive we didn’t even start a thread here

One red flag with this system is pretty academic but with high end events in this area they almost always have significant outbreaks west of here before arriving. This event underperformed massively the day before, with just 6 weak tornado reports. Not much science to that as the atmosphere is fluid and a system can certainly change overnight but usually major severe outbreaks in the south start out in midwest and move into our area

Yea someone posted it yesterday before the front but there was not a SINGLE wind report in the RAH area before the front got here. All of those in central NC were post frontal winds, which were impressive. Swaths of 50-60 mph gusts were certainly seen. We most definitely gusted over 40 out of the NW here a few times. On X this morning I saw a SPC met using this map as justification that the event was not a bust. I can post it if I can dig it back up. To me that’s very poor messaging. There’s been a reckoning on social media and I can say from being in the triangle people are PISSED about the perceived overreaction to what amounted to a cool/dreary day. There needs to be better and clear messaging from an accountability standpoint when these events are forecast incorrectly

I’m going to enjoy these last 2 days of winter like temps! 40s and full march sun is about the perfect day to me and we will be begging for this in about a month and a half I promise you

Very impressive 30.2 this morning. Looks like the first of three straight sub freezing mornings. We finished with 0.49” yesterday when I thought for sure we had a shot at an inch but when the line broke apart before getting here we were left with just a few minutes of moderate rain followed by light rain/drizzle almost all afternoon. Still a good soaking for most of the state

Post- FROPA wind is much more impressive than anything today. We’re gusting over 40 for sure

Probably gusted 30-35 here but all in one gust with front. Let’s see how fast we tumble

Yea might’ve gusted to 20 finally

I think the mountains are going to over achieve too

I think the tornado threat in eastern NC has been mitigated as well given the sloppy storm mode on radar right now

I legit don’t think it’s gusted to 15 mph yet today here

In terms of busts, this at least for the south is probably going to be the biggest severe weather bust in history. Can’t think of another level 4 threat failing to produce anything more than an isolated damage report. People should be thankful it didn’t materialize but that doesn’t take away from the responsibility of forecasters to provide an accurate forecast. There is no way to sugar coat this, it is a major bust. Line is working through level 4 area right now without a single warning

Probably the most exciting side of this system. The blizzard in Wisconsin and Michigan is record breaking even for those areas too. I think NOVA and Pennsylvania will see the worst of the severe associated with the main low btw. That area has developed much cleaner air ahead of the line

One great thing with today’s system is yet another good dose of drought relief. Sitting at around 1/2” already here with the line still to come. Would think 1” for a lot of areas would be attainable today