Huffman brought down his ice forecast. Cited less QPF and more sleet. Said further tweaks down may be needed and that areas might avoid a repeat of 2002
To me the biggest question of the storm is now QPF. Is this in the 0.75” range (CAMs) which would no doubt cause issues but not anything like some of the 1.5-2” outputs we’d been seeing on the globals. There is a huge gap between those sets of guidance and that will dictate whether this is a memorable ice storm or just a sloppy mixed bag with moderate amounts of each precip type
Eric Webb just said he sees more failure modes for a major ice accumulation in piedmont areas than he did this morning:
https://x.com/webberweather/status/2014544089119953034?s=46&t=NyKvXvI1o-sJQb-68mmo4g
Yea the ice area is likely shifting to climo regions. The wish casting mostly for Raleigh. Verbatim still an ice storm but worst of it is clearly heading to climo
Mess but not what we thought… if we end up with an inch of sleet and 0.25” of ice after what we thought I mean that can only be described as a whiff on the forecast
If LP really rides up to Ohio I don’t care how strong the wedge is anyone not in the most CAD climo spots will get above freezing. This didn’t seem possible 12 hours ago. I’m not calling for bust yet but unless the trend stops we’re 1) going to be much warmer and 2) much less QPF. There might be light at the end of the tunnel
I will say this, ICON and NAM ticked pretty far north with main moisture feed. If that shows up on other modeling the severity of this goes way way down. Freezing drizzle sucks but it doesn’t get you to damaging ice
You may not be hearing from some of the posters between ATL and RDU for awhile if some of these solutions verify. Honestly about any of them. Someone is going to get over 1” of ice somewhere and there will likely be a long swath of 0.5-0.75”