calculus1

8 minutes ago, wncsnow said:

 

Thats pretty painful for the foothills but he's usually conservative 

I think his entire graphic/forecast is simply based on elevation. Thus, the lower elevations of the foothills and piedmont get very little and all the high peaks of the Apps are in pink. It’s not necessarily a bad way to go, but I think your geographic location (more north, more west, more…) should also play into a full forecast. For instance, Hunter’s forecast has more snow forecast for the high peaks in the Balsams area than Panovich has for up around Grandfather Mountain, even though they are relatively the same in elevation. Thus, Hunter’s is more nuanced to consider other factors than just elevation. (To be fair to Panovich, he seems to be calling this “potential” rather than a forecast.)

It seems to start as rain for most everybody and then, over time, as the ULL passes to our east the cold air is brought down and heavy wet snow begins to fall in the western parts of the Carolinas and Virginia.

Yesterday, a buddy and I hiked from Brown Gap north on the AT to Max Patch. It was a beautiful clear day. Snow the day before had come down to about 3300. Brown Gap is at 3500 and Max Patch is at 4600. Thus, we hiked in about an inch of snow the entire way - just under 7.5 miles round trip. I love being the first on a trail after a snowfall, so that my tracks are the first made (other than the many animal signs we saw).

When we got to Max Patch summit, we had it completely to ourselves. 360 views under clear skies. Beautiful views of the snow line on the Black Mountain Range to the NE, Mt LeConte to the SW, and Roan Highland balds way in the distance to the N. According to my Kestrel, the temperature at the summit was 24 F, the max wind gust I recorded was 21 mph, and the average wind speed was a stiff 12 mph producing a wind chill frequently in the single digits. Fortunately, we were dressed for the elements, and the sun made it very pleasant (as long as you kept your back to the wind). And, that part of the AT is quite sheltered, other than when on the summit.

I love a good winter hike!

(These are some lower-res uploads from Tapatalk. Not that great, but you will get the idea.)

1.50 inches of rainfall today, on the dot, here at my house. It was raining all afternoon, long after the radar-indicated line of showers had moved through. Just a wedge day in the NW piedmont of NC.

It took me a minute to realize there's four does in the picture.

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I count five, I think. Isn't that a small doe/fawn head behind the other head, second from the left? The are both looking to the left.

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11 minutes ago, BhamParker said:

We honestly have probably picked up 1.5-2 inches in 30 minutes. Unbelievable


.

That was a big change from picture to picture. Beautiful!

Most of us are snow hounds more than severe weather followers. I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but it’s the snowstorms that spark the most interest for most of us.

Also, we have very few posters in this forum from MS, AL, and LA, where most of the tornado action occurs. Yes, there are tornados in GA, SC, and NC too, but not like in Dixie Alley, typically.

14 minutes ago, buckeyefan1 said:

Oh how sweet, GSP radar is down 

It's been for several days, unfortunately.

https://weather.cod.edu/textserv/raw/KGSP/NOUS62_FTMGSP/

Parents have a busted pipe in Hickory, I’ve got faucets dripping while I’m gone but the way the pipe is ran in my home shouod keep any issues to a minimum as there is only one 5’ run of exterior wall pipe running and that’s for the hose bib and runs down the CMU block wall in the garage.  Temp shot up quick, was 16 when I left at 11:30.

Came home last night after Christmas Eve service to water pouring into basement from a busted pipe. Yuck! Not how I envisioned spending the evening: cleaning up water. Now, I just have to repair it in the next day or so to make our home livable again. Gonna put in pex where I take out the old pipe section and get it away from the block wall.

Merry Christmas to you all!

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11 minutes ago, Buddy1987 said:

I will say with this setup this plays into the hand of the Euro having a tendency struggling with n/s energy and dumping it too far west, ala San Diego going from extreme cold to extreme warmth. GFS ain't perfect by any means but with the ensembles violently agreeing, it gives me a little more hope it ends up projecting something close to reality. Beyond that, man.. all out bombogenesis as it heads from MYR to ILM and then the VA Capes.

How does something "violently" agree with something else? I'm trying to picture that...

I think we've gotten soft recently, regarding rainfall.

My wife's boss referred to this weekend as a 100-year rain event for Hickory and wants them to work from home on Friday. What?!

I have a conference ending early on Friday in Surry County, NC, because of potential bad weather; i.e., heavy rain. Really?!

HS football has been moved up a day in Hickory because of Hurricane Ian. We can't play in rain?!

Since when did we begin to cancel things because of rain? This is nuts. I think we get 2-3 inches of rain maximum in Hickory, NC. We can get that much in a single summer afternoon with thunderstorms. Maybe I am wrong and we get 10 inches of rain, but I don't get all the panicking in interior NC outside the mountains.

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16 hours ago, StantonParkHoya said:

Been bone dry in Raleigh for weeks. We can soak it up.

Same here in Hickory, NC. We got 0.62 inch of rainfall last night due to a rogue storm on the frontal passage, but that was the first measurable rainfall in weeks. We need the rain here.

Been pretty boring weather-wise, recently.  Picked up a heavy rain shower this afternoon, though -- 1.86 inches in about one half of an hour.  That brings my yearly total up to 29.10 inches of rainfall, just off my ten-year average pace (see below in signature).

Crazy dynamics with this system. All day snow blowing in Boone. Never any accumulation after sun came up, though, but the mood flakes were fantastic.

Then, driving back down US 321, even witnessed snow/graupel at Cheek's Crossing outside Lenoir and between Lenoir and Taylorsville on NC 90. The crazy thing about this is that the temperature was at 50! That was a 15 degree difference from Blowing Rock to the bottom of the mountain, and yet the snow still survived the journey to the ground. I'm pretty sure that's the warmest ground temperature I have witnessed snow falling at. Crazy. And pretty cool.

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At App State's Open House with my daughter today. It is bitter outside, but the flakes flying in the air are beautiful! Just a light dusting here in Boone proper. It helps the flowers pop against the white background.

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The endless obsession with ground temps gets old in the main thread.  How many times do we have to rehash this?

Anyway, whether it accumulates or not, just seeing snow fall is always a win in my book.

2 hours ago, WXNewton said:

Definitely an overachiever here as far as ice goes. GFS did horrible with precip back to the west and the ice. RGEM sniffed it out first and stayed course with it. I've listen to constant scanner chatter from 4:30-9:45 wrecks every few minutes.  https://photos.app.goo.gl/2VhcxMJfgxAZfgxp7

 

2 hours ago, WXNewton said:

Few pic from about 30 mins ago.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hTkJh9pBWuzdRdHf6

 

 

Wow! That's significantly more icing than we got in NW Hickory.  Newton is further to our SE, but it appears you got the goods, there.  Incredibly long icicles for something that was supposed to be so minor.

30/27 here in northern Catawba County.  Evergreen trees starting to droop from ice.

30.1/28 in my similarly located backyard. Same ice observations. Tiny icicles formed too.

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Temperature really dropped once the rain began here.  Down to 30.2/27.  Can still drop a bit based on the dewpoint.

Temperature is rising here rather quickly now.  Up to 28.9/23 now after being down to 27.4/20 only half an hour ago.  Who knows what will happen in the morning…

It’s now 27.4/20 here in NW Hickory…

WWA just issued by NWS GSP…

Perhaps a light ice glaze in the morning…

Would prefer to see sleet, though.

Currently 27.6/19 here in NW Hickory? Will there be a bit of a winter weather surprise in the AM? We shall see...

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20 hours ago, TARHEELPROGRAMMER88 said:

The 90s never existed in NC winter weather history :+) Still doesn't take away from what I said. It will be 3 years below average in a row and we will be going on to year 4. I have always heard 6 inches is the average from a few reliable sources. I will stick with that. 

Well, Adam Schefter used unnamed sources to report Tom Brady was retiring yesterday, and let's just say there's been a bit of pushback.  Just sayin'. 

It's kinda difficult to argue with the math behind @cbmclean's calculations.  And, the word average can indicate either the mean, the median, or the mode.  Most people understand the word average to mean the mean, but the mean is the measure of central tendency that is most susceptible to having extreme values skew it's value, in this case, positively.  If you remove the Carolina Crusher year from the above dataset, you will find the mean annual snowfall in RDU is only 4.4 inches, and that's still keeping in the two unusual values above 14 inches.  Take those two out, and the mean is even closer to the median value of 2.5 inches.  I would argue the median is a much better measurement of the typical annual snowfall in a location that has such extreme variability.  While RDU can definitely have a year or two here and there with a double-digit snowfall total, it's much more the exception than the rule.  Thus, I would make the argument that RDU is already above average (the median average) in snowfall for this winter.  Anything else is gravy. 

15 in Hickory. My in-laws reported 10 in Black Mountain.

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Yep, @Hvward was right on with his map for Catawba County.  Completely blanked.

My in-laws in Black Mountain are reporting around 2 inches.  We're heading up there this afternoon.  Hard to believe that somewhere in Swannanoa got 8 inches, as that's only like 3 miles away from their house.