GaWx

12Z Icon: low from FL panhandle to Savannah What’s not shown here is that Atlanta and other areas appear to get significant amount of sleet. ATL temps near freezing entire event. @dsaurthis appears to be giving you 0.4” of qpf in form of sleet. Snow: notable increase some areas 0Z had this:

Models generally have had a cold bias for a good number of years, unfortunately. All levels are affected including surface and 500 mb. That’s why there’s often (though not always of course) a NW trend in the track of storms as you get closer. They often start off in the modeling as southern sliders and become inland runners as you get closer. These cases were destined to be inland runners from the start but the models weren’t smart enough to know far in advance. Hopefully we’re now close enough so that there won’t be more NW trending for this one. In Atlanta, the coldest days’ lows were projected to be well down into the teens awhile back. Now they’ve warmed there ~10 degrees. Still a solidly cold period with lows well down into the 20s (MB normal) and cold enough for wintry but not nearly as cold as earlier projected meaning less room to play with.

6Z GEFS mean had an increase: Atlanta area 1-2.5” Members: ~1/2 give ATL 1”+ (that would be biggest snow there in years); avg annual is ~2”; median annual is lower

0Z EPS snow: large increase/most yet by far Members:

0Z Euro snow: highest yet for Euro Sleet: highest yet for Euro ZR: highest yet for Euro Total liquid equivalent: by far highest yet overall

0Z GEFS: excludes IP/ZR Members: @dsaurTony there are also several with sleet at your abode!

UKMET has ~0.50” qpf of mainly sleet and ZR for ATL. Would be their biggest of that type since 2/12-13/14.

The 0Z GFS has major snow in Atlanta. Should this verify (4.5” airport), would easily be biggest snowfall there since Jan 9-10th of 2011.

Wake Forest 0.43” qpf Wake Forest 850 temp -2: snow Wake Forest temperatures 31 (snow sticking) So, I’m guessing this is giving you a real nice snowfall of 4”.

The Dec QBO came in at +12.70, down from +13.78, the first monthly drop since March. https://psl.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data

Good eye! Consistent with the further south operational Euro, the 18Z Euro ensemble mean’s axis of heaviest snow to the west at 144 came in ~50 miles south of the 12Z’s 150: It’s going to be tough to get the mean low track back southeast enough for a place like Atlanta to get at least several inches of snow but we’re still just far enough out that it’s still very doable even if not likely.

E US cold bias of most models strikes again. Hoping they won’t warm even further the next few days.

18Z GEFS: significant increase many areas, especially N GA (keep in mind this excludes ZR and any sleet Tony and others might get):

Good snow (couple of inches upstate SC to W NC)

Still wintry precip though

18Z GFS not looking encouraging sorry to say based on 135. Tracking too far NW for great setup. let’s see how much wintry there is.

18Z Icon 120 is ~100 miles S of 12Z 126. Things like this can end up making a big difference down the road.

For ATL (city itself) as depicted it is closer to mainly sleet or rain with 850s of +1C: Surface 34F, so not ZR as depicted: qpf: AI continues with its unusual warm sfc wind flow..here it’s from SE, which disagrees with just about all other models (maybe it being AI is a handicap) and thus I think it won’t verify this way: Sfc: doesn’t look right. By the way, ATL has no major winter storm on record with mainly SE winds.

ATL had 4.2” of nearly pure sleet on both 2/17-18/79 and 1/7/88.

There are exceptions (like 3/1/09 which was mainly from a bowling ball upper low and 3/93) and variations but I’ll normally want a weak Gulf low passing ~ENE offshore the N Gulf coast and then going over the general vicinity of the north-central FL peninsula out into the Atlantic for the best shot at a major snow or sleet ATL-AHN corridor among other areas per history. Of course there has to be cold enough air to the north. Sometimes it can go from the Gulf to over FL panhandle to SE GA and work if the air is cold enough. The following map is the mean SLP map for winter storms that includes 2/12/14, 1/9/11, 2/12/10, 1/2/02, 1/18/92, 1/7/88, 1/22/87, 3/24/83, 1/12/82, 3/2/80, 2/18/79, 1/9/62, 3/11/60, and 2/26/52:

12Z EPS

12Z EPS: similar to 0Z EPS/12Z GEFS

12Z Euro has some ZR: snow:

12Z Euro low track way too far NW for big SE snowstorm. Need further SE track than GFS like on 7 of 30 GEFS members