NorthHillsWx

GFS says you gotta smell the sleet to jackpot. Plausible on that front

If we stay all frozen we will pass the assignment (6”). There’s so much QPF it might be 4” snow 4” of sleet. That’s a major passing grade with temps around 20

Gfs wetter and more amped but just a tick north. Actually colder at surface in most of NC.

This feels like watching a slow motion car wreck you knew was gonna happen…

Idk, looks further north to me

One other fail mode to watch for- if this is a miller B and there is a transfer to the coast there will likely be a dry slot that sets up during the process

This is the stage in tracking where initial expectations can be set. If you live north of Va line your expectation should be all snow and possibly heavy amounts. For most of NC chances are high you mix at some point so determining timing, degree of mixing, and if you go all the way to ZR will be critical. For SC and Georgia this looks like a ZR storm. Maybe the upstate can score on the initial WAA or the wedge is cold enough for sleet. Worried about further north trends with thermals. I’ve seen models throw out 6-8 hour thumps of snow just for NAM to come in and cut that time in a third. Something to watch. Those are my thoughts at this point

If we got 2”+ QPF with temps less than 28 throughout and less than 6” frozen this would be an epic epic fail

I think the crippling ice storm following it is sitting on everyone’s minds taking the wind out the sails. Also the thought of the NAM driving that warm nose to the Virginia line after 3 hours is likely on everyone’s mind in this setup

We need to see some positive trends tonight for the sanity of this board but the fact remains- there will be winners and big time losers here. Losing here carries more repercussions than usual (extended outages, etc).

2018 all over again. Wake county was 8-10 inched on north end and nothing on south end

That was ugly. My eyes are bleeding

Long way to go. Basically 4 days out

Euro jumped super north with thermals. Kinda the Virginia storm theory

That’s mostly ice in NC.

DC freakout commencing after that gfs run

GFS drops a foot on Larry in Savannah lol

I’ve been on the side of a I-85 and north snowstorm this whole time. I am cautiously optimistic given the strength of HP that ZR will be south and east of here. I believe triangles best outcome here is a heavy 6-8” front end followed by prolonged sleet. That would make everyone here happy. ICON, CMC are the worst case, 2002-like but colder. Just can wrap my head around being in lower 20s with ZR I’d have to think the IP area is larger than modeled.

ICON is worst case for this storm in central NC. Very brief snow then straight to crippling ice. Hopefully that’s sleet but idk that track looks like an ice storm to me

Fact that is EPS inside 4 days and not some random 300 hour GFS run is absurd

This is literally the type of storm the NAM was built for. NAM will be the most watched model starting tomorrow night

@olafminesaw brings up a good point- this storm likely features the WAA “thump”. This is where heroes are made in the mix areas as that front end over performing or switching to mix too fast can make or break a storm. That is 100% something to watch for most areas. 2018 featured one of the heaviest front end thumps I can remember in Raleigh. We got 7-8” in like 6 hours before it switched to rain. In this case there will not be a switch to plain rain, but the thump might be just as important for storm total snowfall.

^^^^^ THIS

This has a lot of similarities to that storm. From a footprint perspective I really think this ends up similarly. Surface is much much colder this time and QPF might be higher. But overall that is an analog to what is developing this weekend

In this case, given the impressive blocking, there is a limit to how far north the system gets. However, mid levels are a different story with strong WAA driven by how strong the low becomes. That’s why you’re seeing surface temps remaining steady or even falling while mid levels keep ticking warmer. As long as the HP is close to what is modeled, plain rain will be an afterthought for most on the board. This is an anomalous cold setup at the surface and the battle looks to be in The mid levels