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The Jan 9-10 Storm Part 3


MotoWeatherman

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GFS does show less precip for many of us. Maybe it is still not picking up on the strength of the southern shortwave as Roberts was mentioning.

Timing is later for us in NC also causing more ice to be involved for the Southern, central piedmont areas.

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I'm finding this situation more likely after the recent GFS and NAM runs......the gulfs warm nose is stronger than than I originally thought

167904_1387677511427_1816759857_771980_6570526_n.jpg

I think accuweather is spot on with this forecast.

Don't take into account of the low's track but the type of precip that falls,

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The sad thing is ever since Monday JB has said models way off with the huge amounts. He said mainly1-3 in Atlanta maybe up to 3 inches in my area. i was laughing thinking he was so wrong and now looks like he may have pulled one out of his hat.

I am still worried about the dry air. It never fails when we have something decent the air dries it all up. We have had so many Virga blizzards over the years.

This is looking like a perfect setup for another one. Lots of good radar returns on Monday but nothing falling. Risking leg cramps running back and forth to the window all day.

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The sad thing is ever since Monday JB has said models way off with the huge amounts. He said mainly1-3 in Atlanta maybe up to 3 inches in my area. i was laughing thinking he was so wrong and now looks like he may have pulled one out of his hat.

I am still worried about the dry air. It never fails when we have something decent the air dries it all up. We have had so many Virga blizzards over the years.

I'll bank that he IS wrong....but with our luck lately who knows? The thing to take away from this is that like the Christmas storm it will be a wait and see deal. IIRC everyone was jumping over the cliff the day before and day of because of the uncertainty yet in the end almost everyone got a good snow (RDU even did better!!). Again I'll worry about QPF tomorrow night when the radar gets cranking. The one thing I would be worried about though is temps, this will be terrible if turns to mainly ice!

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The NAM is just not saturating the subcolumn cloud layer at all in NC,or taking for ever to do it thus the precip just doesnt get going.

One of our hi-res in-house models interestingly enough shows 0.25 to 0.5 inch over N GA, and a 0.75 to 1 inch fin NC from the southern mountains through the foothills southern piedmont to RDU to the central coastlne. But our 4km shows N Alabama, N Georgia, upstate SC and the NC southwest piedmont as the bulls eye with 0.75 to 1.25.

the bottom line is that the overall storm track and ideas are pretty set in stone, however, I can still see QPF oscillate from regoin to regoin and amount to amount over the next 36-48 hours.

Yeah, the precip amount is all over the place with the models. Sounds like we won't know how much we will get until it really gets started.

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Over the Cliff!!!

I can't believe you guys are panicking over an 18z run of a deterministic model. Look at the trends for 2 or 3 days now. The upper low in Texas is stronger than any GFS and NAM or Euro has shown, and will continue to be stronger, for longer, just based on trends. This will allow the pva to broaden out across the Tenn Valley, much like the HPC has on their snowmaps, and it looks reasonable. Of course this season all 3 big ULL have been stronger than progged and this time we have plentiful cold air down south, so we're better off in places like ATL and CLT and GSP that have always had temp problems. This is classic 80's throw back winter storm on any model, although the Euro has looked a litle bit light. The SREF and RUC are the way to go now, not the NAM or GFS, but you can use their trends, and their "trends" are matching nicely, broadly speaking. A wide swath 3 to 6" snow is coming across the Deep south, with meso banding and and a strong southeast winds at 850 aimed at the western Carolinas and North GA should have you jumping for joy with no downsloping to worry about. I even think some areas east of the Mountains could get extra enhancement somewhere in ne GA to western NC and the broad look QPF fields indicate this in their relative max and min areas, but its safer to use SREF and RUC at this point.

If the ULL holds even stronger by tomorrow we can start fine tuning the snow forecast better on amounts, and I'd bet there are suprises near and east of that PVA center, which is why I had some lollipop amounts in n. Miss/sw TN and again in southern Apps.

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This is looking like a perfect setup for another one. Lots of good radar returns on Monday but nothing falling. Risking leg cramps running back and forth to the window all day.

It never fails, if we put plows on two days in advance it never works out. We should have waited until Monday. This pattern is good for us I hope we can get some shots out of it. Just had 5ton of ice melt delivered yesterday. It needs a home besides my shop!!! I know we all are watching this storm but is the one late next week still a possibility? I saw several flurries today from here to Greensboro earlier. Big Frosty had a quick Flizzard

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I can't believe you guys are panicking over an 18z run of a deterministic model. Look at the trends for 2 or 3 days now. The upper low in Texas is stronger than any GFS and NAM or Euro has shown, and will continue to be stronger, for longer, just based on trends. This will allow the pva to broaden out across the Tenn Valley, much like the HPC has on their snowmaps, and it looks reasonable. Of course this season all 3 big ULL have been stronger than progged and this time we have plentiful cold air down south, so we're better off in places like ATL and CLT and GSP that have always had temp problems. This is classic 80's throw back winter storm on any model, although the Euro has looked a litle bit light. The SREF and RUC are the way to go now, not the NAM or GFS, but you can use their trends, and their "trends" are matching nicely, broadly speaking. A wide swath 3 to 6" snow is coming across the Deep south, with meso banding and and a strong southeast winds at 850 aimed at the western Carolinas and North GA should have you jumping for joy with no downsloping to worry about. I even think some areas east of the Mountains could get extra enhancement somewhere in ne GA to western NC and the broad look QPF fields indicate this in their relative max and min areas, but its safer to use SREF and RUC at this point.

If the ULL holds even stronger by tomorrow we can start fine tuning the snow forecast better on amounts, and I'd bet there are suprises near and east of that PVA center, which is why I had some lollipop amounts in n. Miss/sw TN and again in southern Apps.

Robert

You know I am not serious. I never get excited until last 24. He asked where everybody was I was talking about others that always talk about jumping. I think we are in the game just concern about dry air. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif

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I can't believe you guys are panicking over an 18z run of a deterministic model. Look at the trends for 2 or 3 days now. The upper low in Texas is stronger than any GFS and NAM or Euro has shown, and will continue to be stronger, for longer, just based on trends. This will allow the pva to broaden out across the Tenn Valley, much like the HPC has on their snowmaps, and it looks reasonable. Of course this season all 3 big ULL have been stronger than progged and this time we have plentiful cold air down south, so we're better off in places like ATL and CLT and GSP that have always had temp problems. This is classic 80's throw back winter storm on any model, although the Euro has looked a litle bit light. The SREF and RUC are the way to go now, not the NAM or GFS, but you can use their trends, and their "trends" are matching nicely, broadly speaking. A wide swath 3 to 6" snow is coming across the Deep south, with meso banding and and a strong southeast winds at 850 aimed at the western Carolinas and North GA should have you jumping for joy with no downsloping to worry about. I even think some areas east of the Mountains could get extra enhancement somewhere in ne GA to western NC and the broad look QPF fields indicate this in their relative max and min areas, but its safer to use SREF and RUC at this point.

If the ULL holds even stronger by tomorrow we can start fine tuning the snow forecast better on amounts, and I'd bet there are suprises near and east of that PVA center, which is why I had some lollipop amounts in n. Miss/sw TN and again in southern Apps.

Now peace can finally come to the valley of doom. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif

Visible loop show the Texas clouds increasing more rapidly now

http://www.daculaweather.com/conus/sc_visible_loop.php

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The real story is the major event going on in the High Country.

Yeah, you guys are getting hammered up there. I've seen reports over 2 feet at Beech Mt. in Avery county. All those counties on the TN border are reporting widespread amounts of 1+ feet. This next little bit that you get from this gulf low will seem like just a little icing (no pun intended) on the cake.

Check this link for more totals:

http://booneweather.com/Forecast/Boone

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Models keep warming up the 850s earlier and earlier. Still getting more than .5 inches of liquid in Shelby, but it's close to 50/50 snow/sleet or ice when it was 80/20 snow yesterday.

Looking at the ensemble plumes from the 15Z SREF for CLT and many of the members are showing more of a transition to freezing rain after a 2-4 inch snow. This is a change from previous runs that kept sleet as the predominant precip type after the transition from snow. Some of the its wetter ensembles are showing anywhere from a quarter to half an inch of freezing rain after a quick transition from sleet. Even todays 18Z NAM shows almost a quarter inch of ice although it comes mainly in the form of very light freezing rain or even drizzle. I don't know how much of any snow we receive will stick to trees as this will be a drier snow than the Christmas storm but even 2 inches of snow sticking to tree limbs followed by a quarter inch of ice would be enough to cause some significant damage. Also looking at plumes looks like mean total precip is just about .65in.

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I can't believe you guys are panicking over an 18z run of a deterministic model. Look at the trends for 2 or 3 days now. The upper low in Texas is stronger than any GFS and NAM or Euro has shown, and will continue to be stronger, for longer, just based on trends. This will allow the pva to broaden out across the Tenn Valley, much like the HPC has on their snowmaps, and it looks reasonable. Of course this season all 3 big ULL have been stronger than progged and this time we have plentiful cold air down south, so we're better off in places like ATL and CLT and GSP that have always had temp problems. This is classic 80's throw back winter storm on any model, although the Euro has looked a litle bit light. The SREF and RUC are the way to go now, not the NAM or GFS, but you can use their trends, and their "trends" are matching nicely, broadly speaking. A wide swath 3 to 6" snow is coming across the Deep south, with meso banding and and a strong southeast winds at 850 aimed at the western Carolinas and North GA should have you jumping for joy with no downsloping to worry about. I even think some areas east of the Mountains could get extra enhancement somewhere in ne GA to western NC and the broad look QPF fields indicate this in their relative max and min areas, but its safer to use SREF and RUC at this point.

If the ULL holds even stronger by tomorrow we can start fine tuning the snow forecast better on amounts, and I'd bet there are suprises near and east of that PVA center, which is why I had some lollipop amounts in n. Miss/sw TN and again in southern Apps.

Excellent write up Robert. I agree that there is no need to be panicking at this point after seeing what you stated earlier regarding the RUC and what appears to be going on as of now. Over performance has been a constant theme with the day of an event taking shape and I can see it happening again for this occasion. We should do at least decent with this event for snowfall accumulations. It may not be on a historic record but it's still something to enjoy. I should think with enough lift of our moisture as it spreads into NC combined with high snow ratios, there is going to be some terrific totals for folks especially back in northern GA.

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I can't believe you guys are panicking over an 18z run of a deterministic model. Look at the trends for 2 or 3 days now. The upper low in Texas is stronger than any GFS and NAM or Euro has shown, and will continue to be stronger, for longer, just based on trends. This will allow the pva to broaden out across the Tenn Valley, much like the HPC has on their snowmaps, and it looks reasonable. Of course this season all 3 big ULL have been stronger than progged and this time we have plentiful cold air down south, so we're better off in places like ATL and CLT and GSP that have always had temp problems. This is classic 80's throw back winter storm on any model, although the Euro has looked a litle bit light. The SREF and RUC are the way to go now, not the NAM or GFS, but you can use their trends, and their "trends" are matching nicely, broadly speaking. A wide swath 3 to 6" snow is coming across the Deep south, with meso banding and and a strong southeast winds at 850 aimed at the western Carolinas and North GA should have you jumping for joy with no downsloping to worry about. I even think some areas east of the Mountains could get extra enhancement somewhere in ne GA to western NC and the broad look QPF fields indicate this in their relative max and min areas, but its safer to use SREF and RUC at this point.

If the ULL holds even stronger by tomorrow we can start fine tuning the snow forecast better on amounts, and I'd bet there are suprises near and east of that PVA center, which is why I had some lollipop amounts in n. Miss/sw TN and again in southern Apps.

thank you!! i couldnt figure out why there was so much dispair and doom and gloom. things still look good as far as i can tell

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Robert

You know I am not serious. I never get excited until last 24. He asked where everybody was I was talking about others that always talk about jumping. I think we are in the game just concern about dry air. thumbsupsmileyanim.gif

sorry I wasn't really talking to you LOL . I guess this is the time everyone gets nervous though. Latest RUC continues a strong cutting off in central Texas, I may get worried of missing this to the northwest eventually :axe:

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I'll bank that he IS wrong....but with our luck lately who knows? The thing to take away from this is that like the Christmas storm it will be a wait and see deal. IIRC everyone was jumping over the cliff the day before and day of because of the uncertainty yet in the end almost everyone got a good snow (RDU even did better!!). Again I'll worry about QPF tomorrow night when the radar gets cranking. The one thing I would be worried about though is temps, this will be terrible if turns to mainly ice!

I am with you, I am just saying how he has said this all week and now the models keep showing less and less. I will take ice, anything wintry. I have been without power for 8 days with ice storm in 1989 then another one in the 90's but I like anything wintry.

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sorry I wasn't really talking to you LOL . I guess this is the time everyone gets nervous though. Latest RUC continues a strong cutting off in central Texas, I may get worried of missing this to the northwest eventually :axe:

Hey man you never have to worry about me getting nervous or cliff jumping. Its all a bonus for me to plow or manage ice. We never bank on it in our plans or budget. If we get it great but if we don't we will continue to work. Some really get into it and upset if it don't happen. I hope models wrong and it gets everybody. Then maybe another one soon I hope

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GSP's thoughts on the storm are also shifting. They significantly decreased their snowfall forecast too

StormTotalSnowFcst.png

That's almost a quarter less snow than the previous run.

To compensate the ice accumulation map went up

StormTotalIceFcst.png

And to think how a lot of people mocked accuweather on this forum...

NOAA dropped the totals 1" in all the counties and increased the ice amounts...not that big of a deal. Still over 4" for most which is a major snow in these parts. They aren't buying the NAM...these will change everytime they update and Accuweather never in this lifetime had me getting 7" of snow...I promise you that.

To this day have no idea why people in the southeast even look at accuweather for winter weather information????

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Those temps are totally bogus. Virtually zero chance they verify.

Dsaur..just the usual places, including twister. I use plymouth and nrl for soundings. I'm sure you know plymouth but here is nrl

http://ready.arl.noa...v/READYcmet.php

http://www.twisterda...e&archive=false

On a side note, I'm still just amazed how cold the boundary layer is with this storm. nam/gfs show 900 to 950mb temps anywhere from -6 or -7c at 950mb to -9c at 900mb in extreme northeast Ga. For a few hour period, around hour 45, it even drops the 850mb temp in a part of the upstate to -9c!

The 850s of course warm with time but the boundary layer, especially from 925mb down stays extremely cold throughout the storm. Generally -5c or colder. It seems so bizarre because 99/100 times I'm sitting here looking at these levels and the cold air stays in the carolinas or is just a degree or two below freezing. It makes this storm rather special for sounding geeks like me.

Thank you, sir :) The NCEP I've been using just looks less fine tuned than yours. Yeah, I guess this is a crazy Carolina thing, but the idea it is as cold as advertized and I could go from heavy snow to sleet to zrain with the bulk being z rain makes no sense to me. I either go from sleet to zrain and thats it, period. Or I get some sleet to snow with some zdrizzle at the end, which is what I think happens here, but never does it go from heavy snow to zrain when it is this cold. Now maybe if it is around 32.3 or whatever I could see a dusting before the rain/zrain gets it. I'm ready to be amazed by this storm, but what the gfs has been giving me on Bufkit would be a duzy. I've been in and out of heavy snow and heavy zrain to where I'm surprised I don't hear limbs cracking already, lol. Guess we'll have to look out and see whats falling when the time comes, lol. But it is fun for once to be right sure something is coming!! I'm just glad the birds aren't playing tomorrow :) T

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The trends are ever more discouraging. Looks like another 0.5" or less event with some light zr to ice the crapcake. Then it warms up and I'm sure La Nina will assert itself again and winter will be over. All I have to say is thank God. One of the worst winters in a while. Nothing but nickle and dime events despite a cold pattern. Would rather have 50s and 60s than this borderline crap.

The RUC is not to be used for forecasting past a few hours. Why is Foothills proposing that?

This storm can't possibly trend better because it is dying no matter what. Usually, precip ends up being overdone by the models, so if the models are only showing light precip, expect even less. I think it's safe for N AL, MS and GA to get excited, up into upstate SC, but it's over for most of NC. The storm and the winter.

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So I don't do too much looking back at old runs, and from what I have been reading you guys are saying the system my move slower, which in turn would allow 850's to become a problem. I've noticed this thing was supposed to come in to CAE originally around 9pm, then it has been 12am, and currently looks to be around 5am Monday morning. That would greatly effect our snowfall accumulation and allow more freezing rain to make it's way in quicker I would assume since daylight would heat the atmosphere although I thought the main factor switching us over was going to be that warm nose? If it's all the warm nose causing this and we were going to stay cold at 850 without it, why is the switchover occurring earlier? Is this warm nose just basic daylight heating, or is it associated with the weakening gulf storm?

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Looks like it's starting earlier and more widespread then any of the models, this is a good sign.

You sure about that? The models only show 6 hour accumulations and that means actual accumulation, not just radar returns. Also, the precip generation may not be that great, but it may not matter for the overall accuracy of the models. In other words, looking at a radar loop showing spotty very light precip doesn't really mean much.

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