downeastnc

18Z NAM is just a wee bit concerning.........seriously some of the most insane sounding for NC you will ever see....also this line of semi discrete cells over central eastern NC would be exactly the kind of stuff we don't wanna see.....then the line its self is gonna be crazy efficient at getting those 70-80 knt winds just off the surface down.....could be a heck of a event if the NAM is right.

RAH AFD this afternoon highlights the main points rather well....... The beginning of the long term continues to be the time of interest as a maturing mid-level cyclone moves over the Ohio Valley. Friday morning a low level stratus deck will likely be in place which will help to create a differential heating boundary across the CWA. The NAM at this time also indicates a weak confluence boundary over the CWA. These multiple mesoscale boundaries will likely play a key role in how Friday develops. Friday afternoon PWATs will continue to rise and approach 1.7" as strong low level southerly flow helps to advect moisture into central North Carolina. These type of PWATs would be a monthly record. A surface low will then form across western North Carolina Friday afternoon into evening and pinwheel northeast as the mid-level low takes on a negative tilt. SFC to 3 km shear values are again extremely impressive with values around 40 kts. Instability with the system remains in question. MU CAPE values on the GFS are in general less than 1000 J/kg while MU CAPE values on the NAM are more around 2000 J/kg. The main threats with this system will be damaging wind gusts (owing to the extremely strong low level flow), heavy rainfall, and isolated tornadoes. SPC currently has the area outlooked in a Day 3 enhanced.

This setup has tons of potential to be epic or to bust....if we manage to get breaks in the clouds and can get any kind of real instability like the NAM has, plus some kind of surface low reflection over the upstate of SC to back the winds then Friday could be epic.......it could also stay cloudy all day and be a typical skinny cape high shear squall line that gives sporadic bowing segments with winds 60-70 mph.....but overall a meh day.

SPC write up for Friday included this.... ...Synopsis and Discussion... Deep upper trough extending along the MS Valley early Friday morning is expected to continue eastward, maturing into a well-formed mid-latitude cyclone centered over the southern Appalachians by the end of the period. Very strong flow aloft will exist throughout the base of the upper trough, with the strongest flow developing within its eastern periphery Friday afternoon and continuing into Saturday morning. 500-mb flow could exceed 100 kt, which is near record values across the Carolinas and into the mid-Atlantic based on SPC sounding climatology. In contrast to these impressive dynamics, overall thermodynamic environment will be marginal. Given that ample low-level moisture will be in place (i.e. dewpoints in the mid 60s to low 70s and 100-mb mean mixing ratios over 12 g/kg), the modest instability is largely a result of warm temperatures aloft and consequent poor lapse rates.

Tor warned cell headed for Hickory.....couplet looked decent over Valdese is weaker now.....

SPC left tomorrow as a mod risk but man things could get ugly fast in Dixie alley and there will unfortunately probably be several long track strong tornados tomorrow, for us here in NC its much more murky....

Latest NAM is pretty nasty for most of the SE this weekend into Monday morning....not sure how bad it would truly be in NC Sunday night but the soundings and stuff look rough....night time tornadic storms are the worse.

84 over 61 waiting to see if these storms will hold up......

Destabilizing quickly in eastern NC.....cape coming up fast, mid level lapse rates are good as usual the big wrench in the cogs is the shear.....20-25knts right now is not exactly blowing the doors off.....

Though this storm was much larger and covered GA/SC/NC its still the closest thing to something like what the GFS has in living memory....its been 35 years since something like that has happened...

Little early for hurricane season....GFS you so silly.....

Well the GFS just ran a mini me to the 93 "Storm of the Century" ....been flirting with a big east coast monster storm for a few days.....need it to track 300 miles further east though.....and not be 372 hrs....

There are people in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham reporting light to mod snow from time to time well north of the precip on radar....RGEM is a little better now has a dusting literally 10 miles to my south lol.....you know if I was forecast to get 1-3" tonight this thing would have no trouble trending south enough to screw me over the next 6-8 hrs, it never ever goes the other way though....I cant remember the last time we had a situation like this were the precip made it further inland than expected and gave us a surprise couple of inches.

People reporting snow in Tusculoosa and Bham AL well north or the radar returns so that is odd.....not sure how heavy it is but I cant imagine its too heavy if its not being picked up on radar....

It really wont take much to turn this into something as bit more than a few flurries, already downstream it seems to be producing a bit more than the hi res show, sure would be nice to see one bust in our favor for once.....doesn't seem likely but we may see at least some flurries up here in Pitt Co....

Most models now have higher QPF just offshore, if the current trend can just keep it up by Tues this could be decent here. .3-.5" QPF would make this a nice little end to winter.....

No worries CMC says just wait till Sat lol....the GFS's are kinda close Sat too lol...winter is such a friggen tease here at the end....

Next Tues/Wed is the last grasp at straws for the winter, I am still kinda optimistic it would not take much of a NW trend to put eastern NC in play, be a nice payoff since we got blanked all winter ( we did get 4" in the early Dec storm but it was gone in a few hrs after we went to heavy rain )....... after that it looks like we might actually have a warm March which means storms, its been a long time since NC has had any real severe season in the spring.....obviously 2011 was terrible but since then it seems March-May has been cool and storms hard to come by.

Yeah the Ohio Valley folks gotta be hating that trend lol....significantly further south at 00Z tonight versus 12Z today probably isn't anything to get to excited about but if it went any further SE then parts of NC could be back in play.....be interesting to see if the Euro moves any tonight.....for what it is worth the CMC also shifted 100 miles or more SE on the 00Z run tonight versus the 12Z today... 12Z low in the NC mts to off Delmarva 00Z Charleston to off Lookout to off Cape Cod

It right where we want it, better to far east than to far west....I am a bit bias as it takes a lot less NW trend for me to cash in than for folks further inland....honestly I am fine with it staying suppressed until Sunday night, then make 3 or 4 jumps over a day or so. I get very wary of snow maps showing a lot of snow over MBY more than a day or two out as they always trend away....I want it trending to me that last 24-36 hrs......so I hope this thing stays suppressed for 4 more days at least on the models.

Yeah baby thats what I am talking about, that is the perfect friggen setup for a good NC snowstorm, just need it to get juicier on the NW side, and it will probably be a bit colder than that even.....also that sexy little low relocation off Hatteras would be nice to see actually happen..FV3 has it as well though still mostly suppressed. Of course we now have 6-7 days to watch this one trend away as well probably.....

At this point its gonna change so much run to run its kind of hard to say if there is even really two definite waves....the sad thing is we probably are going to be dealing with a lot of inconsistency till at least Friday in the models. In a way though IMO its almost better to not have the models run after run showing a big snowstorm in this range only to have it go bust down the stretch. I would rather it be borderline and trend to the good in the last few days to keep expectations down. That said I am strangely optimistic that this one is going to bring the goods, after the lousy winter in general this seems like just the thing mother nature would do......

Lots of models trending badly today but I would not get to worried just yet, hell the 18Z GFS just ran it suppressed with hardly any precip over NC this time around.....this is probably going to be one of those cases where we have to wait till all the players are being well sampled for the models to lock it in. The trend today was not encouraging but with 6-7 days to go a lot can change. I wouldnt throw in the towel just yet heck I wouldnt even pick it up.....

GFS has a nice little secondary hit Wed, especially in central and eastern NC as a low bombs well offshore.....all in all still a good hit for NC 3-6" for most everyone.....also decent for northern 3rd of SC....

The 00Z Euro had 33 out of 50 ens members showing at least a trace or more IMBY......with 8-10 being warning criteria events.....several of those are monsters for the whole state.....sure would be nice to get hammered Sun-Tues then by in the md 60's by the weekend. Still this storm is a week away and well chances are by the time next week gets here this thing will be 50-60 and rain....