February 18-19 MAJOR Ice Storm Threat

[Joe Clark]

Updated Disco out of RAH:

.NEAR TERM /THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH TONIGHT/...
As of 955 AM Thursday...

...No changes to the current Winter Storm Warning and Winter Weather
Advisories.

Icing has been limited to mostly elevated surfaces, thus far. Most
of the significant icing reports of 0.1 to 0.18 have been from
Forsyth, Guilford, Granville, Vance, and Person Counties (in the
heart of the Winter Storm Warning). The temperatures have been
rather marginal again, with mostly readings in the 30-32 range in
the Warning Area, thus limiting the icing especially on roads. The
temperatures bottomed out around daybreak and have been steady or
slowly been creeping back toward 32 in the Warning area. However,
there continued to be a feed of dry and cold air from northern and
central VA into north-central NC. This is courtesy of the parent
high pressure of nearly 1030 mb located over NY/NJ, extending south
deep into our Piedmont damming region. Low level near surface
trajectories continue to be directed from where temperatures were in
the mid 20s in central VA.

Radar showed showery precipitation with large gaps in the heavier
rates, reducing to drizzle in the gap areas. Thus, it will take a
much of the day for the ice to reach Warning criteria on average
(0.25 or greater) in the heart of the Warning. That will be
challenging given the solar insolation and the temperatures so close
to 32. Some of the heavier showers will contain some thunderstorms
(as there is some instability noted aloft). In addition, some ice
pellets will be mixed with the heavier rain rates in the showers.

It appears that the icing will be a self limiting event in the
Advisory area (Albemarle to Raleigh to near Roanoke Rapids) where
readings should teeter between 32-33 with the CAA at the surface and
the solar insolation / higher rain rates offsetting and limiting
icing to north facing and elevated surfaces.

Models continue to show a lull late morning and much of the
afternoon in the west or northwest, with the steady and heavier
precipitation shifting into the east. Then, another wave aloft will
bring renewed precipitation later this afternoon and evening. Temps
should still be 32 or 31 over portions of the Warning area, thus
additional ice accrual is expected.

The Advisory area is in question unless we can tap into the low
level cold air a bit more in the next few hours

The flash flooding risk appears lower now - given the heavy QPF will
likely be in the south and east (lower end of the main stem rivers),
with lighter QPF of 0.25 to 0.50 over much of the Piedmont.

[magpiemaniac]

1 minute ago, btownheel said:

Y'all Triad folks posting here need to get your grid game squared away like us here in Alamance  

What’s Forsyth doing?  Chopping down power poles for firewood?

[BornAgain13]

Their definitely wasn't as much qpf with this as what I thought it would be 

[magpiemaniac]

31.5 with light rain here.  Plenty of ice on the trees, but I’m beginning to think that last weekend helped cull the weakest limbs.  Not a single flicker of power.

[PackGrad05]

I'm still watching high res models for temps for Wake overnight tonight.  Could have another brief period of frozen stuff.

[btownheel]

2 minutes ago, magpiemaniac said:

31.5 with light rain here.  Plenty of ice on the trees, but I’m beginning to think that last weekend helped cull the weakest limbs.  Not a single flicker of power.

Looks like both you and I are going to be under the precip belt for a good while still.  Hope sun angle helps limit accural.

[Omen]

Precip about to end here. Ended up with about .25 sleet and .10 zr. Point forecast has .5 to .7 today and up to .3 tonight. Hard not to call this a huge bust, but I am happy not to loose power. 

[kvegas-wx]

Must have just had a sleetfest at the farm in Stuart.  There was nothing but some zr on the trees earlier this morning and now the ground is covered, almost fully white, with sleet.  At least a quarter inch showing on the security cams.  Crazy!

[Wow]

The ice, as expected, was a bust. 

[gritsnc]

Stokes County 

[nchighcountrywx]

31 minutes ago, Wow said:

The ice, as expected, was a bust. 

Exactly. Knowledgeable ones knew yesterday it would bust in many areas 

This type of bust is really a huge blessing.  Our lineman brothers in Virginia especially Southern Virginia cooperatives are still slammed from last Friday night with over half of the customers in Southside Virginia cooperative still out 

[MOD]

[BornAgain13]

Ended up with slightly over .25" here with sleet on top of it... but definitely not near what they were calling for

[JoshWeather]

any ice that was on my deck/patio furniture is long gone.  The only ice i can see now is up high in the trees, and even it looks lighter than earlier.  Must have warmed up some in the last hour

[BornAgain13]

Here in Dry Fork. Had more from the last storm.

Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk

[magpiemaniac]

Where’s the wind that was forecasted?  There’s enough wet soil and ice on trees to cause problems unless winds stay calm.

[PackGrad05]

1 minute ago, magpiemaniac said:

Where’s the wind that was forecasted?  There’s enough wet soil and ice on trees to cause problems unless winds stay calm.

We've had plenty of wind here in Wake.  Gusty for sure this morning.  

[magpiemaniac]

3 minutes ago, PackGrad05 said:

We've had plenty of wind here in Wake.  Gusty for sure this morning.  

I’m at 2 mph from the east.  Not what was forecasted.

[magpiemaniac]

[Dunkman]

The melting has already started here. I’ll be surprised if there’s anything left by late this afternoon.

[Tullioz]

2 minutes ago, magpiemaniac said:

I’m at 2 mph from the east.  Not what was forecasted.

Yeah, I was expecting winds in the 15 to 25mph range by now.  I did have a gust of 6mph around 10am and currently the winds are gusting to around 3mph.  Lol

It's about as close as you can get to dead calm outside at the moment. 

 

[kc4wsd]

Currently: 32.6/31.8 with 0.52 in the bucket
KSIF reporting 32/31 OVC 700
KMTV reporting 32/32 OVC 700@Tullioz you must be cooler than me because you're farther north. LOL!
Actually, my station is covered in ice . . . maybe it's insulated.

[magpiemaniac]

1 minute ago, Tullioz said:

Yeah, I was expecting winds in the 15 to 25mph range by now.  I did have a gust of 6mph around 10am and currently the winds are gusting to around 3mph.  Lol

It's about as close as you can get to dead calm outside at the moment.

Of course, I’m not complaining about lack out outages, but it’s astonishing just how inaccurate short term forecasts seem to be lately.  Can’t even get wind estimates anywhere close.

Only weather models and baseball players can get away with such low success percentages.

[magpiemaniac]

2 minutes ago, kc4wsd said:

Currently: 32.6/31.8 with 0.52 in the bucket
KSIF reporting 32/31 OVC 700
KMTV reporting 32/32 OVC 700@Tullioz you must be cooler than me because you're farther north. LOL!
Actually, my station is covered in ice . . . maybe it's insulated.

I’m still at 31.8 for some reason.  Very light rain.  Absolutely no wind.

[NorthHillsWx]

Yea, this is going to end up as a major bust for the warning areas. Some may reach 0.25 but nowhere near the 0.50+” predicted

[WeatherWeenie87]

20 hours ago, NEGa said:

 

I do too.  It is also something I have been thinking about (the 10-20 years ago storms). 10 -20 years ago almost all wedges and CADs ended up colder than the models were showing, which is where we all got the "it will trend colder" from.  Sometimes significantly and markedly colder. however, for the last couple of years, we all talk about the trending colder and expect it yet it is just not happening and a lot of us end up at 33 or 34 with rain.  the models still aren't that great, but they do appear to be handling the colder air a bit better.  I cannot really remember a storm in the last couple of years that trended much colder and ended up with a surprise storm or more ice than anticipated.  

while I remain optimistic and hopeful, I am no longer really all that convinced about the "trending colder" for CADs any more.  I take a lot of it with a grain of salt - in the early 2000s it was almost always fun to track CADs and post temps/dewpoints and watch as a lot of the people on the boards as it happened.  It just doesn't seem to do this now and we can never get the trend to shave off the final few degrees we need. 

(this post is referring generally to ne ga and the upstate, not the higher parts of NC)

 

I agree. 2002 was almost two decades ago, modeling and technology is far better than those days. It appears models overdid the Cold Air Advection this time.

[Tullioz]

4 minutes ago, NorthHillsWx said:

Yea, this is going to end up as a major bust for the warning areas. Some may reach 0.25 but nowhere near the 0.50+” predicted

The point and click forecast for my area still shows this:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Eden&state=NC&site=RNK&lat=36.5057&lon=-79.7422#.YC6d0-hKhPa

[NorthHillsWx]

For what it’s worth, models for the most part trended yesterday to what actually happened. Yea, they wayyyy overdid it in days leading up but it’s not like those extreme ice totals held up before go time

[Tullioz]

15 minutes ago, kc4wsd said:

Currently: 32.6/31.8 with 0.52 in the bucket
KSIF reporting 32/31 OVC 700
KMTV reporting 32/32 OVC 700@Tullioz you must be cooler than me because you're farther north. LOL!
Actually, my station is covered in ice . . . maybe it's insulated.

Just reached the melting point at my location. 32.0/31.8

[wncsnow]

As @jburns taught me when I used "threat" in the thread title for the last storm, I think @NorthHillsWx learned we should never put MAJOR (especially in capital letters) in the title. It was certainly a MAJOR disappointment..