NorthHillsWx

Temp Crashing with the onset of snow. Down to 34. 44 was the high. Gotta love good mid and upper levels and a good push of dry air before

Where in Raleigh? I'm snow in North Hills area

Wow, switched to all snow quick in North Hills at the house. Moderate snow now still 38

Rain/Snow mix at the house in North Hills. Temp down to 38. Long way to go but happy to see flakes already.

I think it's a bit larger than that...

All rain in Garner. About to head home to take my last meetings from the house before Raleigh panics and everyone hits the road at once.

I agree on the DP front. Just ready to see appreciable precip blossoming as the coastal takes over and we start to see some moisture transport. At work in Garner I can confirm that light rain has started. No flurries or sleet pellets here. Not sure the temp

DP continues to fall at RDU, down to 25. Precip is sure having a tough time advancing N and to the west. Not sure if this is a bad omen for less moisture or a delayed arrival...

When people are posting about there maybe being an extra "slop" to a raindrop when it hits their car, you know we're desperate to see a flake

Sleet/Graupel in Garner. No rain mixed in. Dry air doing its thang

I'm guilty… Only reason I did at work was it was within a degree of my home weather station which I've found to be accurate. Shows my mental state hoping for a flake and entering the anxiety period. Starting an event in the mid 40's, in the middle of the day, in late february is not great for that anxiety

Hard to melt rain puddles!

If I'm chasing snow 800 miles away it will be done on an airplane and I will be going to a ski resort

2 days ago: "Temps are unequivocally not going to be an issue". I knew better: Agreed if you're only talking about seeing snow fall. For accumulations, temps are always an issue. Take the 2.8 system for example. Many areas outside of North Georgia and Oconee and Pickens counties saw snow fall with no mixing, but very minimal accumulations. Mid and upper levels were excellent so it stayed snow but temps at the ground never fully cooled below the 32-34 range and really cut into accumulations. With a system like this where precip looks to be meager at best, wasting any precip waiting for temps to drop that extra degree will significantly cut into snow accumulations. I agree the atmosphere is not an issue but the fact is the baseline temps are going to rely on evaporative cooling and rates to reach a point where accumulations are possible. It's not going to start snowing at 32 degrees and temps fall from there. I'm not going to be the "ground temp" and "sun angle" guy, but those in the upstate and charlotte areas might have something to say about that from the last system as the only efficient accumulations occurred at night or early morning (I know that's also when precip peaked with that system, but it does matter). That being said, the focus continues to be on pushing more moisture further north and letting the temp battle play out from there. That has been the limiting factor with this setup and continues to be so. The trends have been positive today from that angle. I know the take the cold first then worry about moisture approach, but to the previous post's point, cold is not an issue for it to snow with this system. It only will become an issue if we get to the stage of talking accumulations.

In his/her defense, if we had 2 snowless seasons in a row, some here would be contemplating a similar drive

Weenie of the year (decade?) award goes to...

Can't wait for the first cliff diver to step over the edge after that GFS run

I have become too emotionally involved in tomorrow's storm for my own good. Please bring me back down to Earth, people of the sanitarium!

Well, the EPS certainly is trending better today. That's best news with this system yet.

Not too shabby

For the first time since this "threat" showed up on models, I have allowed myself to dream of glory (measurable snow lol) imby. Now I have officially opened myself up for disappointment. It's a vicious cycle in the South...

That is a snow sounding all day. Hi-res models will sniff that out when they get in range. Key is seeing a N/W expansion of precip trending over time.

Bottom line after today's runs is that a coastal low appears to be our best chance now and coastal lows do have a tendency to trend NW. Modeling will bounce around for the next few days but the players have entered the field from all camps and we are finally able to track something inside 4 days. Not every run is going to be better than the last one but I'd say overall the trends today have been encouraging. Obviously the CMC, which had a beautiful run last night, wasn't as good but it still had the same idea. Starting to see agreement 4 days out which to me is as good as we could ask for in this timeframe.

I think you will be able to tell the state of the Thurs system entirely based on whether this thread turns "hot" after the 12Z model runs tomorrow

I would not say it was more suppressed. The LP location remained nearly identical, if not a tick further North, but the precip was not nearly as expansive. All things considered, still not a bad run imho.