msuwx

I won't speak for the NWS, but WWAs and WSWs have specific criteria that go along with them, and therefore, verification associated with their issuance. So, when you put one of those out, it's essentially a forecast. Don't know if that totally makes sense....my brain is fried.

That isn't how the NWS views it in terms of being a 'downgrade'

No

There's a very intentional reason I never publicly put out accumulation ideas before 24 to at most 48 hours in advance. Think back to the pre-internet era. If you were Joe Q. Public, you would be thinking this event was extremely well-forecast since the messaging would have pretty much been spot-on by TV mets as well as the NWS to this point. But because everyone has access to all of the modeling, social media and click-bating leads to a proliferation of terrible, single images from deterministic model runs. And since the general public has no idea how to weigh (and usually discount) what their phone weather app tells them, it gets even worse. Often times, I long for the days where all of this model data wasn't so easily available. Never has the need for human meteorologists been greater. We serve as the buffer between the endless barrage of model data (which, by the way, is actually way more accurate than it has even been, but is often quite wrong) and the public. As Spann says....all model data is wrong, but some is more useful than others. The general public has no idea how to sift through mountain of incorrect data.

It's owned by our weather graphics vendor.

FYI, the GRAF model has been keying on that same concept of a deform band-like feature filling out near and west of CLT and into the Upstate late afternoon and early evening, similar to what is now seen on the 12z NAM. Hope for the I-85 corridor probably largely depends on that feature becoming a reality.

Punting on an entire month a week before the month even begins is a bold strategy, Cotton.

This storm is yet another example of why I never issue my own accumulation forecast, post, or publically show any model accumulation maps on air until at absolute earliest, 48 hours ahead of an event. In many ways, I miss the very old days where all of this data wasn’t available to all of the masses. Just opens the door for fear-mongering, hyping, and click-baiting. I honestly don’t know if I would have developed my love for weather as a child as I did in this current environment as it is today.

Don’t have a great scientific answer for you about the warm noses. It’s just been very difficult of late to get an old school true Miller A type of system. Regarding Atlanta, they got lucky that the forcing set up where it did. Good for them. Just absolute luck of the draw with how this system unfolded.

As a weather nerd, I always find it fascinating watching the various processes at work in the atmosphere causing varying precipitation types and the changes between them.

That is freezing rain. Rain when the temp is below freezing.

From my experience, Gulf convection that is 'positively tilted' like that can actually enhance the moisture transport northeastward. What you don't want is the convection to race out ahead of the system and it take on more of a neutral or negative tilt orientation. Don't know if that makes sense or not. I'm tired.

HRRR hasn't been bad.

That leading band stretching from ATL into SC will mean a lot. Latest NAM completely dissipates it as it tries to push into NC.

Best start in a couple of decades! Yes, you definitely take notice. Even though there are different geographic processes in play here versus there, if the model’s initialization and early frames are already off by a significant amount it has to translate to some extent in the later hours.