Iceagewhereartthou

Yep. Already up to 34.5/29! That was fast. Enjoy guys, I really hope SC can get something from the 1/24 -mid-Feb timeframe, might be our best stretch!

I don't think it will deliver for my area of the upstate. Possibly the area from about TR to Inman and north could see a little light icing, but not my area. I'm currently at 32/27. Even though I'm at freezing right now, I expect my temp to raise several degrees now that clouds are setting in, and with a DP of 27 I have no way to wet bulb down; unless the CAA wedge has yet to kick in, as the models were showing teens for my DPs. I keep looking at the radar and shaking my head; why oh why couldn't we have the December track with this one? Low is about 300 miles too far north. St Louis to Delmarva is the place to be.

Too bad it's counting on a 1052 high! Never, EVER happen! Seeing that is kinda like when Will and Carlton made Geoffrey think he had one the lottery!

Going all in for the upstate; nice cold rain! Possibly token sleet pellet or barely there glaze on a tree branch at most, otherwise just our favorite cold miserable rain. This is NC north, maybe I40 north. Hoping that late Jan- Feb period works out for non-NC peeps!

It's been a couple days, the sitting water in my yard is gone and now it's just muddy. Definitely don't want to get too dry, gotta make sure those skeeters have plenty of breeding places.

I've thought all along this would be mainly a NC and North winter. Other than a small sliver of the upstate, the Dec snow was all NC and North. This looks to be more of the same, except perhaps the state line will be the cuttoff instead of 85. I'm afraid SC is going to face this all winter while NC will continue to get richer. Looks like 2009-2010 all over again.

Do you really think it "goes as planned?" I hope so, but am very doubtful. Other than a week in December, this met winter has been excruciatinly blah with temps (following a record warm fall), and were seeing no real signs of meaningful change, just "hoping" for one after Jan 20th. So far, all the pre winter hype and awesome pattern set ups have failed miserably. Yes, some got in on a good storm in Dec, but many don't live in NC, and I hate to waste most of January. Many areas can score big in Feb, so there's still plenty of time, but we don't have too many more weeks to waste. Back loaded is fine, but I hate trying to eek out something meaningful the latter half of Feb into March as there's too many issues to overcome for many areas, and I'm afraid that's where we're headed. Still, it's Jan second, and it would be silly to cliff dive this early. Here's hoping!

Last year for Jan 1st, GSP was 30/15. Yesterday it was 68/52; can I trade? Per GSP, I'm only supposed to go below 40 once on Sat night, then it warms up again. Someone said back in the fall they were just hoping we wouldn't have a historically warm month this winter, well Jan could do it. THIS STINKS!

Yeah the rain has been incredible, crazy to see so many multi-inchers one after another. Seems we've been pretty paltry with the highs and the cold, other than our Dec storm, and even that was borderline for most. I remain hopeful, as even the upstate has nine more weeks we could legitmately see snow, but I'm getting that sinking feeling that many of the ingredients we were looking at a few weeks ago aren't coming together. Maybe I'm just being inpatient, as this is "supposed" to be a back loaded winter setup, but I just haven't seen too many signs of bona fide cold yet, anywhere in the country. I know the SSW event has the potential to help with that, but it may also not help us at all; and we always seem to be Charlie Brown with the SSW and -NOA being the footballs. I agree that MA and NE are probably golden this year, but we've got to get a lot in our boat south of NC to get anything. That's another reason why I hated to miss the big dog a couple weeks ago. Despite the common view it was a "bonus" snow, it could also end up having been our best chance all winter in this area. You never know, here's to a big pattern change after mid Jan! It's just a bit of a gut punch looking at the mid range forecasts and seeing nothing below normal for at least a couple weeks.

It's good to be north of I-40! I40 - I85; here's a tease. Everybody else; sorry Charlie I honestly don't know how to feel about things going forward. I think there is a lot of potential, but I am concerned about the lack of true cold so far, not just around here, but nationwide. Despite the early signs of blocking we still don't seem to be able to get that in winter, and it's frustrating we're already playing the SSW card in hopes of getting some to come our way. The only thing that seems to be working out is the (endless) rainfall, but we need the cold. When I say we, I mean everybody outside of NC that got burried a couple of weeks ago and have gotten in on several small events already. I said before I fear this is going to be an I-40 /north or even state line/north winter, despite all the positive factors leading in, and that fear has not abated.

Despite the western upstate screwzone, I fully agree CAE has it worse. We get leftovers, but that's better than nothing.

Yeah; I vaguely remember that conversation with Lookout, he knows only too well. He's absolutely correct; we have to have a stronger high, or a high that comes in sooner and locks in for CAD senarios, or the cold takes too long to get here and then loses out too quickly to the WAA. Those "cold in place" setups (Jan 88, Jan 2011) work well for us but those seem to only happen decades apart so we're not due for another 20 years or so...! Guess we'll have to settle for our penny and nickle (we don't get dime) events here.

With this one, you see not only the west/east cuttoff, but also the north/south downslopping cuttoff. It's amazing what a one thousand foot rise will do (Gville to Hendersonville for example). And you don't often see the same drastic cuttoff in the NC piedmont; sometimes, but not as often or pronounced.

And again, this is how it happens over and over in the upstate. This is the norm. Pretty frustrating.

Ok, thanks. I would be interested to see a more detailed history. Here is a link for the top ten snowfalls. https://www.weather.gov/cae/Snowfall_Total_Records_cor.html

Is there a good site showing a detailed history of CAE snowfall? Their NOAA site only has the monthly CF6 info for the past five years but I don't see anything beyond that or an overview of monthly historical snowfall. The GSP NOAA site has historical monthly snowfall charts for AVL, CLT, and GSP.

Let me preface this by saying this would be true of anywhere, but I think it's very true of the upstate. If you haven't lived here, it's hard to appreciate just how strange the climate can be from county to county and town to town. There is something about the western upstate (west of Spartanburg) and NEGA that makes it really hard to get a good snowfall, despite having several ingredients you would normally consider good for snowfall relative to the rest of the upstate. The counties of Oconne, Pickens, and Greenville are closest to the mountains, slightly higher elevations, among the farthest North in the state, and many times the coldest in the state. The elevaton changes cause some oddities and many outlying areas are significanly colder at night that the urban areas, even though those are generally colder than other urban areas of the state. Being in Easley, I am generally 5-10 degrees colder than Greenville on clear nights; just tonight I left DT at 39 degrees and it was 31 when I arrived at my house 20 minutes later. But this isnt true when systems come through. Despite these apparent advantages, the western upstate routinely fares worse in winter storms than eastern, and sometimes even southern, upstate locales. The onyl systems that come to mind that we have fared better on were Jan 87, Jan 88, and Jan 2011; all of which were cold snowsorms where we werent waiting on cold or timing. We also did better on March 93 (and Jan 96), but that was simply a placement factor, below us was mix to rain. Most other big storms for our area resulted in either a min for the wetsern upstate or a complete skip. This storm, last Dec storm, Jan last year, March 2017, Feb 2014, Feb 2004 (2 feet eastern upstate flurries western) 2003 (CLT 10 inches, western upstate 2-3), Jan 2000 (aka Carolina Crusher - flurries here), the list goes on and on, from year to year. We're too far north for southern sliders (1973, 1989, last year CHS coastal snow), too far West for coastal snows and Noreaters (generally), not high enough for Miller B and apps runners, too far west for CAD events without a crazy warm nose, too far east for TN valley snows that get MS/AL/GA/TN/NC. We typically get the most rainfall throughout the year due to mtn proximity, but suffer dryslots in winter setups. Were typically colder/cooler 95% of the time but suffer warmnoses worse than anybody. Look at a list of largest snowfalls in SC history and Greenville/Pickens/Oconee cities are behind. Rock Hill, Florence, Columbia, Spartanburg, Gaffney have all had larger snowfalls, including many smaller towns across the state. Heck, even MYB had like 12-14 form the 89 storm. Here are a couple reasons why I think all this is true. We have taller mtns on the NNE, N, NW, W, and even WWS. This creates a lower lying pocket ( though still higher than the rest of the upstate) that makes it very difficult for CAD and CAA to penetrate. CAA coming over the mtns either results in downslope warming, or skips over us to other points in the upstate outside the eddy area the mtns create (similar to the eddy effect in a river except here the air skips over the immediate lee, cooling areas further away from the pocket). In CAD situations lke this last one; the cold takes too long to work this far SW (or never does) but is colder in eastern upstate, and for longer, so they get more snow. In Miller Bs we have too much downslope warming and the darn warmnose, that is much worse here than N,NE, or East of us. We also are in the perfect min area for many coastal transfer setups- we lose the energy from the original low as it approaches and the coastal low takes over. So we don't get as much as areas further west because of the loss of energy, but then we miss out on the energy from the new coastal low as well, that places farther east get in on. And within the western upstate are areas that perform even worse realtive to the rest of it; with Clemson being one of them. This is a great place to live for many reasons, but it is an incredibly frustrating place to live for winter weather lovers, even compared to the rest of the upstate, let alone NC.

I'd love to have to find that out for myself. The biggest snow I've had IMBY since Storm of the Century in 93 was 8 inches from 1/2011, and that was awesome. I think this winter will go much like 09/10 and its going to be a blockbuster for NC, heck, it already has been. I wouldn't be surprised if many NC locations set seasonal records this year and it already has a great start. I think for the rest of us this storm epitomized how it will be. Upstate and NEGA will get some sloppy seconds, but will never get to dine at the big table. I'm sure there will be some cutters that will be good for the TN/ MS/AL crew, and there may be another coastal like last year, but it doesn't seem there is any setup that can deliver big for the ATL - GSP -CAE crowd; or if there are they belong to yesteryear.

Maybe we'll have to move to Wake county in order to see a good snowfall!

now that you mention it...

Yep. NWGA and coastal areas got it big last year. NC gets it big every year. Need an ATL to GSP to FLO to CAE big dog.

After a low of 30, had a high of 35. Had dropped back down to 33 but now back to 34. Waiting on more rain!

For all the same peeps who got it this time, AND will get more tonight... I think us GA and SC people see how this winter's going to go...

Looking at models it looks like the upstate will miss out on any snow from the upper level low tonight, except possible extreme eastern or southeastern upstate. Some even showing it to our south all the way to the Midlands. While I won't begrudge the Midlands any snow, it would have been nice for some NEGA /western upstaters to get in on that since the warm nose from Hades visited us last night.

Great decision, there's nothing more special! Forget about snow, that can happen anytime. Congratulations man!