FallsLake

There would be cold air to work with:

Right now the precip it gives us is limited. But maybe we get one more chance before the "warm up".

From RAH: .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... As of 200 PM Wednesday... Any leftover moisture should exit the area to the northeast by Saturday afternoon, allowing for a much quieter, drier, and colder weather pattern to return across central North Carolina. Expect below normal temperatures as we head into next week, with high pressure building into/over the region through Sunday Night. A reinforcing cold front will push through the Mid-Atlantic by midweek, keeping colder conditions in place with little chance of liquid or frozen precipitation on the lee side of the Appalachians. Expect highs generally in the upper 30s to mid 40s, with lows at times falling into the upper teens under partly to mostly clear skies. && DEPRESSING*************************************

<typical nina> Warms up, we get a App or lake cutter, turns cold for a few days, and then repeat cycle. Cold gets bottled up to the NW and we get glancing shots after the front from the low passes. Our average temp ends up above normal because of all the lows pumping in SW winds as they pass to the north and west. <not typical> The past weeks cold that we experienced; especially in how it was centered over us. You would think we should see more typical nina type weather from this point forward. If so, we can still hope for a strong CAD event to produce a winter storm. Even though we average above normal temp wise, there will still be very cold air to our north. We just need to get a strong high to anchor itself to the north, then one of those app storms would be forced to become a miller B, and that is when we can score.

I hope so. I hate seeing the PNA go negative. That's been the one indice that has been primarily in our favor the last few years.

I did sign up but I just don't have time to follow two boards. I'll stick with this site which does have more posters from our area (...as mrdaddyman said).

Don't we need more than the AO? In years past it has seemed we need a +PNA or a -EPO to help keep the pacific at bay. Right now everything is not cooperating except the AO.

There are a lot of things (indices, LR models, inevitable flip to warm that usually happens, etc.) that say we're now going to be warm(er) for a while. Hopefully we can turn the tables by the end of the month. So I guess I'll say it; fab February will save us.

CMC still has an interesting look for the day 9/10 time frame. Extrapolating out after this it also looks cold:

Looks like we may have a tropical system to track in the LR.

Of course I'm always hoping for a colder pattern. I liked the look of the CMC at day 10, but I just looked at the indices and they don't look too good. We could lose the PNA and EPO in the LR. We start seeing too many bad pattern indices and warmth is going to win out sooner than later. Again, if so hopefully for not too long.

I agree about the storm/wave. But I was focused on the NA pattern of highs coming down from NW Canada. You would think we stay cold with that look.

CMC at day 10 actually looks good. Still a big question on what happens after this time period.

Not on this board. Some claim they like the warm over the cold but we know better. If it was 70 and sunny day after day, the panic/complain room would be brutal.

I know it's day 16 on the GFS, but it is much colder up in NW Canada than the last run. 12z was depressing. The 18z look would give us hope that we could see cold outbreaks for the end of the month.

Day 9/10 may be another shot before the warm up. You're right, the above look would keep the low more suppressed or at least have a CAD (Miller B).

Something else that is of interest to me is if we can end January below normal. In years past I've seen the SE CAD areas be able to stay closer to normal as a large area of the US torch. Instead of blazing SW or west winds, numerous CADs develop keeping this zone closer to normal. Nothing cold enough for frozen but cooler never the less. Below is the first example (NAM) for this upcoming Monday. looking at the GFS it would have 3 or 4 weak CAD events through the LR.

With no negative EPO the January Thaw has to be given a higher chance of verifying (as depicted). PNA and NAO look bad in the LR as well. But the next timeframe (week 5 to 6) may be our next and maybe our last real chance to score a big SE winter storm. Hopefully as we get closer the EPO will stay negative longer. we've seen this happen in the past.

But this air mass will already be in place. I think the big questions are, how fast does the precip come in and (as Grit said) can a meso high develop to our north. Big pieces to the puzzle.

It's hard living in this area. We're just cold enough to have a shot at most east coast winter storms, but end up falling short most times. We have a another potential shot at getting something (ice) Monday. Again, the cosmos has to be in line. But because we have a shot, we'll track each model run.

12z NAM dew points at hour 84. Hard to dismiss the possibility of a strong in-situ damming event.

That would be great. I still think we go through some sort of relaxation. No science to why, but basically because we normally do from a historical perspective.

GFS says the January thaw starts at mid month. Looking at the indices, the PNA looks to stay positive(good), AO has a huge spread but I guess it averages negative (??good), NAO does what it always does and stays positive (bad), but the biggest difference is the EPO looks to go positive (bad). We've seen winters where the LR models show warmth just to get the warmth knocked back as we get closer. But I would say a thaw/relaxation should be expected. The question then is how long does it last. 6z GFS day 16 2m anomalies:

Terrible for my location. That band has dissipated coming out of Durham and I think northern Wake may get the shaft on this. Will probably get some accumulations but not very much. I guess I shouldn't be complaining, but it's going to hurt see the snow map with higher numbers to my west and east. Oh well done venting...

Pack it's on your door step. RAH thinks you may be in one of the sweat spots with 2-3"