kayman

Pmph! In Metro Charlotte, it's basically been in a snow drought since the two back-to-back snow events in January 2022. We got a brief snow burst of 0.4" on the 10th, but it turned to sleet the remainder of the event and dry air returned killed any change back to snow over late. Metro Charlotte is exactly like Denver (Colorado), it's too many microclimates across either the 3M+ region, but the parts inside of I-485 seems to have a true urban heat island issue that results in low to no chance of a decent snow inside of 485. The region gets skirted to the north in Cabarrus, Catawba, Iredell, Lincoln, northern Mecklenburg, Rowan, and Stanly counties like the random 1" snow in December 2024, or to the north & west in Catawba, Gaston, and Lincoln or northeast in Cabarrus, Rowan, and Stanly on the January 10th event. That's why so many of the posters in this part of the forum looks at so many of the Triangle and Central NC posters so puzzled and confused in silence over these obsessions of potential snow forecasts. Although Charlotte is a much larger population region, we're so used to being ignored by this subforum, NWS, & even the national media outlets including the TWC for snow. Yet we're in a demographic market area (DMA) where the local TV stations with news operations have to do two seperate forecasts for core metro area counties and mountain counties. It's like so common for us to see snow with winter weather advisories, watches, or warnings in Watauga, Ashe, Burke and Caldwell counties while is nothing south or southeast of those counties, that we don't even really care anymore. It's likely just going to be a very cold and windy Tuesday in Charlotte. We're lucky to have a great forecaster like Brad P here but he only has access to what most already have on hand here. I'll once again remind people that that NWS radar hole does contribute to wrong forecasting as well.

It was a dry airmass boundary situated over the Piedmont in the Carolinas. It did radiational cooling through the atmosphere to the ground so it might yield a burst of heavy snow at its ending tonight.

It's now 27 degrees and light snow with sleet here. If there's a warm nose then it's shallow and weak because it's still snowing

Tbh, that forecast area should've been split amongst BHM, MEM, OHX (Nashville), ATL, and MRX (Knoxville) offices instead of solely BHM. Its geographic of Cullman County being with in it when it's geographically closer BHM was bizarre within itself.

Yep, NC was robbed in the 1990s of much needed NWS weather forecasting offices & radar sites. Instead, placing forecast offices in areas that are need, one was placed in an area sandwiched in area it was not need like Huntsville, AL. N AL and Middle TN only need the Hytop NWS radar site, not an unnecessary NWS forecast office for a barely mid-sized city and region. I'm an Alabama native so I can shade that place because I know it very well.

Yeah, the moisture content has shifted in the system. It will only produce in areas where there is significant orographic lifting which will force heavier precip. I still anticipate something around 1-2 inches in CLT but it will be over a period of several hours occurring until it abruptly ends overnight. I think the band of heavier snow totals from northern NC to southeast & central VA might not even occur at all.

We did. Former US House Rep. Jeff Jackson reallocated funds in the current federal budget to prioritize getting an NWS radar site near Charlotte to fill the hole over Metro Charlotte, and the western portion of the Piedmont Triad including Winston-Salem and High Point. However, it will only occur when the next round of NWS radar updates occurs, if they do at all.

Both cities' NWS radar sites were decommissioned in the 1990s, which contributed to the radar hole/forecasting issues in WNC and Piedmont regions.

I didn't called obscure. However, the GSP NWS forecast office is insufficient to cover anything east of the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville DMA counties in NC for weather forecasting. There's a rather large radar hole that causes a lot of weather forecasting confusion for a lot of people in Metro Charlotte.

It's snowing again but the temperature has dropped another degree to 28 degrees at my location.

The funny irony is because of the dry slot over Metro Charlotte it is causing more radiational cooling in the entire column of the atmosphere. The air temperature has dropped here 3 degrees in the past 4 hours from 33 to 29 degrees at my location. Especially when the air and surface temperatures are gradually lowering while the dewpoint is raising to cause 100% humidity for the precipitation come to the ground. Orographic lifting to the west and southwest might also play a role in this dry slot situation as well too. I still have a hard time believing it will be anything other than snow with sleet mixed in when it does come down to the ground.

Yeah, that is why I said it's a dry area boundary over the metro. It looks like a shadow on the regional radar reflectivity.

Yes, it does have everything to do with the parlor-tricking of the US Congress. Yet, those shall remain nameless individuals at this time, who are all from the state of South Carolina, all love to eat off the explosively rapid expanding economic plate of CLT. Their disrespect for Charlotte shows but begs for York, Lancaster, and Chester counties to be in alignment with the CLT is very obvious. I know the full backstory, but it is not for this subforum thread.

At some point soon, the hole will fill in. It's like a dry slot boundary has set up over the core part of the Metro Charlotte area and it's precipitating in Rowan, Cabarrus, Iredell, Gaston, Lincoln, and Catawba to the north and York, Lancaster, and Chester to the south. However, dry with flurries and a handful of flakes on the CLT Terminal Radar returns since 12. I've looked at the NEXRAD radars out of GSP, CAE, RAH, MRX, FCX and all have this weird shadow over the Metro Charlotte area with the precipitation returns.

I really wish the NWS would solve the radar donut hole around Metro Charlotte, which is 3.5 million in population, that is underserved by the local NEXRAD Level II radar out of Greer, SC. It probably should be its own NWS forecast area with a local NEXRAD. It shows some signs of precip returns inside the I-485 beltway on the CLT Terminal Radar.