RAH discussion. They are seeing the same as everyone else on this board. We will all know either late Monday or early Tuesday.
.LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/...
As of 400 PM Sunday...
A southern stream shortwave will move east from the southern Plains
on Tuesday night to the Deep South on Wednesday, while a separate
northern stream closed mid/upper low drifts SE from the Northern
Plains to the Upper Great Lakes region. The southern wave and upper
divergence from the right entrance region of an associated upper jet
streak will spawn a surface low that develops on a cold front along
the Gulf Coast on Tuesday night and early Wednesday. This low will
then deepen and moves NE in a classic "Miller A" track along or just
off the Southeast US coast on Wednesday afternoon and evening. With
a cold dry air mass in place ahead of the system, confidence is
increasing in a period of frozen precipitation across most of
central NC from late Wednesday morning into Wednesday evening.
However, how impactful it is still remains to be seen, with both
precipitation types and amounts will very much up in the air. This
does not look like an all snow event, as there is almost definitely
going to be significant warming aloft with southerly flow at 850 mb.
At this time, the most likely part of the region to stay all or
mostly snow is the far northern Piedmont, with a fairly large
corridor of mainly sleet and freezing rain to the south. Our
southern tier of counties including FAY are most likely to stay all
or mostly rain.
A lot will depend on the degree of phasing that can occur between
the southern stream and northern stream wave, the latter of which
also has an associated jet streak which dives into the Central
Plains and mid-MS Valley. The ECMWF (and to some degree the
Canadian) has a faster and deeper northern stream mid/upper low
compared to the GFS, allowing for stronger height falls and greater
energy interaction between the two systems. This results in a deeper
coastal low and would bring a high impact winter storm to central
NC, with colder temperatures and greater QPF amounts. The GFS would
be more of a moderate/nuisance type event that only lasts for 6-12
hours before we are quickly dryslotted after 00z Thursday. This is
borne out in their respective ensembles as well, with the EPS
ensembles depicting a 50+% probability of warning criteria snow (>=
3 inches) across roughly the northern half of the region while the
GEFS only have 20-40% probabilities that are confined to our
northern tier of counties. Deterministic and ensemble guidance has
also been depicting potential for significant amounts of freezing
rain somewhere across central NC, perhaps exceeding a quarter inch,
with the greatest probabilities from around Raleigh to the south and
east. The NAM is surprisingly the warmest out of all guidance, with
mostly liquid for a good part of the area, but considering this
storm is at the very end of its range, will mostly disregard it at
this time.
It should be noted that neither the GFS or ECMWF has complete
phasing between the two waves, and the overall trend in both
deterministic and ensemble guidance has been slightly downward in
terms of overall QPF with a faster exit of precip, so will need to
see if this trend continues. Yesterday the ensemble mean QPF was in
the 1 to 2 inch range, while today it is more like the 0.5 to 1.5
inch range, lowest west and highest east. If this trend continues,
we would be looking at more of a nuisance type event like the GFS
has, but that is a big if. Stay tuned as details should become
clearer, hopefully by tomorrow when the southern wave reaches the
West Coast and we can get better sampling. As for timing,
precipitation still looks to start from SW to NE on Wednesday
morning, ending from SW to NE during the evening or early overnight
hours. Temperatures will be highly dependent on the ultimate
evolution of the system, but Wednesday is likely to be quite chilly
with temperatures stuck in the lower-to-mid-30s during the day,
maybe even upper-20s in the far north. Forecast lows Wednesday night
are in the upper-teens to mid-20s.