GaWx

Good snow (couple of inches upstate SC to W NC)

Still wintry precip though

18Z GFS not looking encouraging sorry to say based on 135. Tracking too far NW for great setup. let’s see how much wintry there is.

18Z Icon 120 is ~100 miles S of 12Z 126. Things like this can end up making a big difference down the road.

For ATL (city itself) as depicted it is closer to mainly sleet or rain with 850s of +1C: Surface 34F, so not ZR as depicted: qpf: AI continues with its unusual warm sfc wind flow..here it’s from SE, which disagrees with just about all other models (maybe it being AI is a handicap) and thus I think it won’t verify this way: Sfc: doesn’t look right. By the way, ATL has no major winter storm on record with mainly SE winds.

ATL had 4.2” of nearly pure sleet on both 2/17-18/79 and 1/7/88.

There are exceptions (like 3/1/09 which was mainly from a bowling ball upper low and 3/93) and variations but I’ll normally want a weak Gulf low passing ~ENE offshore the N Gulf coast and then going over the general vicinity of the north-central FL peninsula out into the Atlantic for the best shot at a major snow or sleet ATL-AHN corridor among other areas per history. Of course there has to be cold enough air to the north. Sometimes it can go from the Gulf to over FL panhandle to SE GA and work if the air is cold enough. The following map is the mean SLP map for winter storms that includes 2/12/14, 1/9/11, 2/12/10, 1/2/02, 1/18/92, 1/7/88, 1/22/87, 3/24/83, 1/12/82, 3/2/80, 2/18/79, 1/9/62, 3/11/60, and 2/26/52:

12Z EPS

12Z EPS: similar to 0Z EPS/12Z GEFS

12Z Euro has some ZR: snow:

12Z Euro low track way too far NW for big SE snowstorm. Need further SE track than GFS like on 7 of 30 GEFS members

12Z GEFS: members 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 22, 27 (7 of 30) have a further SE tracking low than GFS: 5-8, 10, 22, 25, 27 have notable snow outside mtns, with 6 of these 8 having a further SE low track than GFS (your best bet): Mean snow through 1/11:

Much of this in SE AL/SW GA is ZR with IP to the north below the snow with cold rain SC/SE GA and much of SC:

12Z Icon:

0Z EPS: slight increase some, decrease others:

ATL gets much of its qpf in ZR/IP due to 850s of +2 to +3 and thicknesses near 552:

Major changes on 0Z Euro! SW upper low gets ejected much earlier.

Easily the best GEFS run in awhile:

The 546 thickness line is often near the snow line in the SE. That keeps snow a bit north of ATL.

Yep, I’m guessing it will be as warm, if not warmer, than the 12Z with a too far NW track.

Except the warm SW winds at the sfc on the Euro AI: look in GA For same time on Icon in GA, they’re cold NE winds due to much higher pressure to the NE (more typical). That’s crazy disagreement! It’s fascinating to see that they’re opposites!

0Z Icon snow:

18Z Euro AI similar to GFS with 1-2” snow in good portion. This is another run with the unusual OH Valley low, which allow for warming SW winds, unusual for having a low in the Gulf. So, this allows for sfc temps to be warmer than usual when having precip with -3 to -4C 850s and thicknesses of 540:

18Z EPS: 30% of members are much quicker than Euro op in bringing precip toward the SE (aiming for ~1/10) than the 1/12 of the 12Z.