Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,608
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    Vesuvius
    Newest Member
    Vesuvius
    Joined

2nd Annual Snow Thread for the Mountains


Met1985

Recommended Posts

It's worth noting that the 18z RAP is much wetter than the 17z. I think you may be jumping the gun a little bit second guessing your forecast. Radar returns over west GA don't look that bad and models are fairly consistent with over an inch liquid. The RAP seems to be trending that way slowly. I could be totally off base on this, but it's still early.

Oh I hope my revised forecast goes down in flames. Just enough on radar to make me second guess my original call. What a difficult science we study!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 3.7k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

It's worth noting that the 18z RAP is much wetter than the 17z. I think you may be jumping the gun a little bit second guessing your forecast. Radar returns over west GA don't look that bad and models are fairly consistent with over an inch liquid. The RAP seems to be trending that way slowly. I could be totally off base on this, but it's still early.

By the way, your analysis is excellent! Keep that positive energy coming!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hurricane, I think with short range models showing such high qpf values you have at least take notice of that. Although radar presentation is poor at the moment. Once the phase takes place and h5 closes off the precip rates will be very high for someone in or adjacent to the apps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Radar returns in north Georgia are giving me a little bit of hope.  I want to see some green and yellow make it up into the mountains.

 

On a side note, it seems like the central mountains end up in these "snow holes" quite a bit in these kind of situations.

 

Lot of it is more of a radar artifact than reality. For instance, my location is nearly 100% beam blocked at base scan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hurricane, I think with short range models showing such high qpf values you have at least take notice of that. Although radar presentation is poor at the moment. Once the phase takes place and h5 closes off the precip rates will be very high for someone in or adjacent to the apps

I had the same analysis at 10am. It just seems to be taking forever to happen. Typically when it takes longer, the QPF is lower. Short range models should have taken that into account though. But I think they may be a little too aggressive. I do hope my revised amounts are wrong. But since 7am we have .25" of snow here. Long way to go if we want to get up to 8-12"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is insistent on this!  But I think major changes are needed for the wNC forecast.

 

Based on very poor radar representation upstream from the mountains, and from the latest HRRR which has snow ending much sooner than forecast, and since we are still waiting on the first good band to come into the mountains, snow totals will need to be lowered substantially.

 

Please note, this is not a cliff dive!  This is a re-evaluation of current conditions.

 

That all being taken into account, I am lowering my forecast for AVL.  I had originally predicted 8-12" for the area.  I don't see this happening (and if it does, I'll happy eat the crow for being wrong).

 

But all things considered, a new forecast value for AVL is 3-5", mostly from 5pm to 10pm tonight.

 

Thoughts from others?

 

I'm just little disappointed atmosphere around here didn't take advantage of it... I want to be in extreme weather for once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Radar returns in north Georgia are giving me a little bit of hope.  I want to see some green and yellow make it up into the mountains.

 

On a side note, it seems like the central mountains end up in these "snow holes" quite a bit in these kind of situations.

 

Aclt.gifnd

 

A rather large hole at that.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, but i was referring to actual precip rates as opposed to just the depiction on the radar.  Better returns to the south, east, and west of us.  But here, very little.

 

I can assure you that radar holes always seems to have a nasty habit of forming over the weather observer during any significant event! However, you really only notice them when they happen to be overhead..not when all your neighbors get them!

 

In this case, it is mostly real..probably caused by the sinking air behind that convective cluster than formed South in Georgia earlier in the day then advected our way and before upper level dynamics coming in from the West have had time to act on the existing moisture in place.  

 

At least it is going away quickly with heavy snow coming in out of Georgia now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC

314 PM EST WED FEB 12 2014

.SYNOPSIS...

A MAJOR WINTER STORM WILL PERSIST OVER THE REGION TONIGHT AND EARLY

TOMORROW. THE LOW WILL TRACK NORTHEAST AND UP THE NEW ENGLAND COAST

BY EARLY FRIDAY. A FEW WEAK SYSTEMS WILL AFFECT OUR WEATHER INTO THE

FIRST HALF OF NEXT WEEK AS TEMPERATURES SLOWLY WARM.

&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY/...

AS OF 245 PM...THE LATEST SFC ANALYSIS CONTINUED TO SHOWS A WELL

DEFINED COLD AIR DAMMING ACROSS THE WESTERN CAROLINAS AND NE

GA...SOURCED FROM 1035 MB HIGH PRESSURE CENTERED OVER NEW ENGLAND.

SFC LOW PRESSURE WAS ANALYZED NEAR THE PANHANDLE OF FL...LOWERING TO

1009 MB. RECENT IR SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE ANOTHER COOLING CLOUD

TOPS WEST TO AL. 12Z NAM INDICATES THAT STRONG ISENTROPIC LIFT AND

UPSLOPE FLOW...ASSOCIATED WITH THE LLVL JET...WILL REMAIN ACROSS THE

FORECAST AREA THROUGH 6Z. THE LIFT WILL COMBINE WITH A POOL OF HIGH

PW...SHOWN ON THE BLENDED PW...SUPPORTING A SHIELD OF MODERATE TO

HEAVY SNOW LIFTING SOUTH TO NORTH. IN ADDITION...SEVERAL BANDS OF

-EPV WILL RIPPLE ACROSS THE REGION LATE THIS AFTERNOON...FAVORING

THE FORMATION OF MESOSCALE SNOW BANDS. A LARGE FIELD OF MID LEVEL

Q-VECTOR CONVERGENCE WILL ARRIVE THIS AFTERNOON AND PEAKING 12Z THURS.

THE OVERLAP OF LLVL AND MID LEVEL FORCING SHOULD RESULT IN THE

GREATEST SNOWFALL THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH THIS EVENING. HOWEVER...THE

12Z GFS AND ECMWF DEVELOP A VERY INTERESTING DEFORMATION ZONE AROUND

18Z THURS...PRODUCING AN ADDITIONAL HALF INCH TO INCH OF QPF. THE

MESOSCALE MODELS DO NOT INDICATE THIS FEATURE. I WILL NOD TO THE

SPECTRAL MODELS AND CONTINUE POPS WELL INTO THURS AFTERNOON...BUT

WITH LESSER QPF. OVERALL...ADDITIONAL QPF AMOUNTS ARE FORECAST TO

RANGE FROM 1.9 ACROSS THE I-77 CORRIDOR TO AROUND AN INCH ACROSS THE

WESTERN NC MTNS. TEMPERATURES THROUGH THE REST OF TODAY AND TONIGHT

WILL REMAIN NEARLY STEADY.

PRECIP TYPE IS COMPLICATED BY SUSPECT ABSENCE OF ICE NUCLEI THIS

AFTERNOON AND EVENING ON THE GFS AND NAM. GIVEN THE TREMENDOUS MOISTURE

AND OVERALL COLD LLVL CONDITIONS ACROSS THE WESTERN CAROLINAS...I

BELIEVE THAT ICE NUCLEI WILL BE PRESENT. HOWEVER...DOPPLER VELOCITY

AND DUAL POL AGREE WITH FORECAST SOUNDINGS WITH DEVELOPING AN H85

WARM NOSE OVER THE EASTERN PIEDMONT. THE WARMING ALONG THE EASTERN

TIER WILL CONTINUE THROUGH MIDNIGHT...YIELDING A BLEND OF SLEET AND

FZRA.

EVENTUALLY...DOWNSLOPE FLOW EAST OF THE MTNS WILL DEVELOP ON

THURSDAY...AIDING DRYING FROM SW TO NE. POPS WILL DECREASE WITHIN

THE DOWNSLOPE FLOW...HOLDING ON THE LONGEST ACROSS THE I-77 CORRIDOR.

THE WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS ON TRACK. I WILL UPDATE TO ADJUST

ACCUMS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE OVERLAP OF DEEP MOISTURE...SYNOPTIC

FORCING...AND POTENTIAL BANDING.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...