January 25/26 Jimbo Back Surgery Storm

[NorthHillsWx]

ICON looks slightly better at 500mb. More separation with the baja low initially

[BornAgain13]

Icon looked weird lol. It went quick to

[HKY_WX]

ICON would likely be the worst ice storm in the history of the Carolinas. Devestating. only real savior for us could be sleet at this point given how cold the sfc temps will be. 

[neatlburbwthrguy]

Just now, HKY_WX said:

ICON would likely be the worst icestorm in the history of the carolinas.

How does it look for Georgia? 

[HKY_WX]

1 minute ago, neatlburbwthrguy said:

How does it look for Georgia? 

The same. At one point, it has freezing rain in Greensboro with sfc temps at 12. Hour 90 and 96.

[HKY_WX]

[Blacksburg Coach]

The Northern Half of Georgia won't exist for about 2 weeks, southern half rain.

[HKY_WX]

40 minutes ago, HKY_WX said:

You can see the flip side in tn/al. This is likely.

[Thrasher Fan]

12z GFS much slower with precip onset out to 78h

[Brick Tamland]

GFS splits NC right in half with snow to the north and ice to the south at 84.

[HKY_WX]

Checkout the dewpoints on the GFS with the backdoor CAD front. -8 at RDU by 18z Saturday right before the precip starts.

 

[sakau2007]

4 hours ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Our ZR should melt slowly next week so there won’t be any wasted runoff for drought relief, lol

a decent bit will be lost to sublimation.

[burgertime]

12z GFS looks like a few inches of snow up front then a massive sleet fest with ZR after. 

[Blacksburg Coach]

540 line is identical to the 6Z

[Thrasher Fan]

GFS holds serve again. What a battle we have going folks.

[Tony Sisk]

59 minutes ago, DTP said:

Having lived around CLT (Highland Creek, Harrisburg, and Tega Cay) for 25 years, I have seen the same setup quite a few times at this point.  If you are in CLT and want 100% snow, it probably won't happen- very low probability,  even north of 85.  If you like sleet. and lots of it- this is your storm; it will be the predominant p-type south of 40 down to a Chester/Union/Greenwood line.  South of that, mostly ZR down to the coastal plain.

The depth of cold air is extremely impressive for a CAD event; this has not deviated substantially on any of the models. Yes, a warm nose can and will wreak havoc on a pure snow event, but it is always a big feature in dammimg events- no way around it in most of these scenarios. However, if you have aome sort of frozen atw down to Wilmington and MB, and have a strong CAD signature going to NE Alabama, you are going to have high-impact winter storm from I-20 north. 

 

N Texas has different topo than the Carolinas, but the manner in which cold moves southward in an event like this is somewhat similar to a CAD event in our region (I grew up 20 min north of Dallas).  Deeper cold layer the further north you go, shallower as you go south from the Red River.  Backdoor front with NE winds during CAD is fairly similar to a blue norther with attendant instability and p-types as the cold filters in, especially with how the track of this low is modeled.  So you have WSW almost down to Austin at this point- that is a much deeper layer of cold around Dallas (upper teens by late Saturday).  Start as rain, then fr rain, then goes to a mix of frozen with predominantly sleet, and quite a bit of sleet from what I am seeing.  Most likely the same scenario in and around CLT, as our modeled temps are pretty similar in this setup.  

Thinking maybe 2-3" of snow in CLT, 3-4" of sleet, and minimal freezing rain- sure, you can have freezing rain in the upper teens/low 20's here, but it isn't likely given the amount of cold air present.  Biggest ZR amounts will be just north of 20 in SC over to outside of Wilmington. 40 north probably sees 6"+ snow totals, plus a good bit of sleet....prediction on my end is based on living in the region and having seen this setup several times a decade....it isn't all that common- especially with the magnitude of cold present

 

Fwiw- metadata beats any probabilistic model 100% of the time (I have worked with probabilistic models for 20 years in health science and finance, as well as created them), simply because metadata has already occurred- so take a look at METARS totals from the DFW area starting Friday PM, and you will have a really great crystal ball as to what is going to play out in the Carolinas, at least around Charlotte.  I wouldn't hold much stock in any model run this far out, outside of the overall probabilitstic signal (major CAD/winter storm for the region)- there will be some major fluctuations- lot of noise, wo specifics....L/T AI will generally improve predictive value on the majors, but it has to learn first.  Also a testament to how fantastically bad some of these models actually are to start out with- when you have almost unlimited computational power, much of what you are seeing in terms of run to run discrepancy should have already been smoothed out by now to some extent.  I have seen rapid smoothing and a huge increase in model robustness in industries with an even larger variable set and more complex scope of data, simply bc the existing models gave AI a much better starting point.....

 

Good luck to everyone on this, and make sure your loved ones have access to heat and electricity/generator.  Also have a gutter company on speed dial- a 5" gutter spike into fascia will not hold up with that amount of sleet/ice over a 25' run...I have been meaning to put up gutter guards for about a year- I think I will get the ladder out before Friday and get it done 

 

 

this is an outstanding post and could be repeated for GSP.  This is what I'm hoping for:

"Thinking maybe 2-3" of snow in CLT, 3-4" of sleet, and minimal freezing rain"

[Blacksburg Coach]

That low off the SC coast is interesting

[neatlburbwthrguy]

2 minutes ago, burgertime said:

12z GFS looks like a few inches of snow up front then a massive sleet fest with ZR after. 

Board wide? 

[Brick Tamland]

Snow line moves up to the NC/VA border by 93.

[burgertime]

At 5h GFS is more neutral tilt and sends a big round of ZR at hour 111. 

[Upstate Tiger]

Crazy evlolution of the system on the GFS but definetly a more favorable outcome for NC and SC.  

[burgertime]

1 minute ago, neatlburbwthrguy said:

Board wide? 

Sorry meant for NC should have clarified. GA and points south are ZR. Middle TN gets a great snow on the backend. 

[SnowDawg]

4 minutes ago, Thrasher Fan said:

GFS holds serve again. What a battle we have going folks.

It's moving north, just incrementally. Clear trend though.

[CaryWx]

I saw where a certain met stated the gfs is poor at capturing the surface waves like depicted in this event vs say the euro or ukmet.

 

Any truth to that?

[NorthHillsWx]

GFS keeps trending to other guidance 

[burgertime]

This is the GFS. 

[BornAgain13]

Just now, NorthHillsWx said:

GFS keeps trending to other guidance 

I figured it would. 

[CaryWx]

1 minute ago, SnowDawg said:

It's moving north, just incrementally. Clear trend though.

Yeah, but seems to almost reflect the wedge the best like we are used to seeing in the classic fashion.

[NorthHillsWx]

1 minute ago, CaryWx said:

Yeah, but seems to almost reflect the wedge the best like we are used to seeing in the classic fashion.

Yea, it’s a classic winter storm, still better than other guidance re snow/IP. But ZR definitely trending up as well 

[wake4est]

I'm scared to see the sleet map for this one. ZR is ugly south of the triangle.