Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,606
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

2017 Mountains and Foothills Fall/Winter Thread


Tyler Penland

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 2.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply
Current Conditions
Current conditions at GRANDFATHR as of Friday, March 2nd, 2018 @ 9:00 AM EST (8 mins ago)
Temperature: 19.8 °F (-6.8 °C)
Dew point: 17.6 °F (-8 °C)       Relative humidity: 91%
Wind: North (1°) at 72 mph with gusts of 92 mph
Pressure: 828 mb (24.45 inHg) station pressure
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At least the weather this week won't be boring...



.LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY/...
As of 230 PM EST Sunday: Picking up where we left off with the deep
upper trough axis over the Appalachians and increasing CAA behind
the front, Wednesday night lows should be below freezing just about
everywhere with hard freeze potential across the mountains and NW NC
Piedmont, with lingering NW flow snow potential in the mountains.
Again ECMWF is basically dry after 00z Thu while GFS keeps some low-
end pops across the mountains, so as a compromise just have slight
chance with very little in the way of accumulation. Highs Thursday
should be a good 10 or so degrees below seasonal normals with some
gusty post-frontal winds, dropping wind chills into the single
digits across the mountains.

Meanwhile a secondary shortwave digging down the western side of the
longwave trough will form into a little closed low and dive down
toward the mountains, bringing a little reinforcing shot of moisture
to mountain zones Thursday night into early Friday. The reinforcing
front for overnight will likely lead to a hard freeze across most of
the area, but some improvement on Friday (though still below
seasonal normals) as thicknesses begin increasing as the trough
pushes to the east.

After Friday, things get more interesting, but with less confidence
given differences in the models. A shortwave sliding down the NW
flow across the Plains combined with a sharper digging shortwave
diving into the northern Rockies will induce surface low formation
across the Southern Plains Friday night into Saturday. Developing
warm front stretching east across the Ohio Valley and associated
isentropic upglide will allow moisture to push toward the Southern
Appalachians by daybreak Saturday. As is usually the case, the
battle between moisture and cold air will be in full force Saturday
morning, and using a blend of guidance this warrants a rain/snow mix
at onset for all but extreme southern zones, though again confidence
is not particularly high. Temperatures aloft for now aloft cold
enough that ptype shouldn`t be a huge concern, but in the end this
will depend on whether or not we`re able to have moisture deep
enough for dendrites vs. starting off with some cold rain or
freezing rain (with shallower moisture and surface temperature
dependent). A quick warm-up to just below seasonal temps on Saturday
will quickly change any ptypes quickly to all rain, but interest
continues to increase with the inverse of confidence as we push into
the new day 7 (Sunday). Bottom line, ECMWF is a good 24 hours faster
with the strengthening surface low and takes it farther north, but
the GFS tries to develop a Miller-B low pressure pattern around a
damming high. Either way, whether more of a convection concern or a
p-type concern, the forecast a week out looks like it could be fun.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We all knew during the February heat wave that winter would return in March.  The indices said it was coming although this is typical for the mountains.  March is very much a winter month; even more so than February (in recent years) :snowing:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Buckethead said:

Kinda surprised there's not more talk in here with what the GFS and Euro are showing for late weekend into early next week.  Looks like a decent event for lots of folks in the mountains potentially.

Saw this coming when our bell cow aka Met1985 took to trains.  Hope he is doing well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

0z Euro and 0z Euro Ensemble are night and day when looking at the Sunday-Monday event.  Clearly the models are struggling with this potential.  The first half of the ensemble members never really develop a strong low, whereas most of the back half members develop a strong coastal.  A couple of members on the back half even show 12"+ accumulation.  The potential is there for a big March storm, but lets enjoy this upcoming NWF while the models sort it out.  3km NAM develops a quasi clipper type system with the piece of energy on the backside and moves it through early tomorrow morning before it phases and produces fireworks to our NE.  Don't think any accumulation is possible below 3500', but a decent snow shower or two could make it even into downtown Asheville tomorrow morning imo.  Looks like it will be a prolonged event as the low strengthens off the coast and moisture continues to stream through WNC.  I could see snow showers lasting around Beech Mountain until late Thursday evening.  All and all, should be an interesting event here compared to what we have experienced over the past month. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12z ICON is the trend you want to see. Without taking the precip verbatim, look at the 500mb cutoff low barrel over WNC and captured the surface low that’s just off the SC/NC Coast, all while going negative tilt. If that happens my friends, WNC will be snow white Monday morning. Way too many variables to speak with any certainty at the moment, but this one is going to be fun to track.

Also, 3km NAM continues to increase snow totals on the NC/TN border, I wouldn’t be surprised to see 4”-6”+ by the end of Thursday in the favored highest elevation location. 12z 3km has a max snow total of over 20”, but that is likely overdone. Half of that could be possible though.


.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Queencitywx said:

Kinda see some similarities to 3/1/2009 there but thats just me.

I could certainly see that.  12z Euro strings everything out though with the low pressure to the NE dragging our energy away from the 500mb low.  Still a long way to go with this one, and its probably going to be feast of famine.. but I am just glad to have at least one last system to track before Spring arrives.

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...