Friday Morning....

The video above is encoding and should be ready to go soon if it is not now.

The models seemed to have settled into somewhat of an agreement with our storm system tomorrow. Low pressure will develop in the northern Gulf of Mexico and lift up to near the Carolina coast.

It looks like most of the precip that falls in the Charlotte metro, Triad, and Triangle regions will fall in the form of snow. At all spots, the precip could begin as a pretty brief period of rain but quickly change over to snow and remain as snow until the end of the event.

The astronomical snowfall amounts printed out by the NAM model yesterday appear out to lunch. However, I do like the chance of accumulating snow for much of the region.

Here is my thinking as of this morning....as always, I reserve the right to adjust this some, and I won't be in my on-air shift until this evening. That is when my final call will come out. Also, keep in mind I am cutting this video and writing this post before I have seen any of the sounding data from the 12z models.

This is one of those cases where the Piedmont will probably see more snow than the mountains from the synoptic event. And, unlike yesterday, the I-85 corridor will probably see more snow than in the northwest Piedmont. There will likely be a fairly sharp gradient from northwest to southeast in terms of snow amounts.

For Charlotte, this looks like a 2-5" type of storm, depending how much snow we lose at the beginning portions of the event that doesn't accumulate. The precip spreads in tomorrow morning, psosibly beginning as a couple of hours of rain before kicking over to all snow. The snow becomes light by Saturday night and ends.

For the Triad itself, this looks more on the order of a 1-4" snow. However, somewhere in the Triad viewing area could wind up more toward 5" where the precip and the cold air line up correctly. Snow, possibly beginning as a brief period of rain, begins close to daybreak or soon thereafter and ends tomorrow night.

For the Triangle, this also looks like a 2-5" snowstorm, with the potential for a little more where the cold air and precip line up best. Rain probably begins tomorrow morning, switching to snow by lunchtime. Snow then ends late tomorrow night.

Around the Hickory area, this looks more on the order of a 1-3" storm.

What makes this one such a tough call is the sharp edge on the northern edge of the precip. There will probably be some spots that see a dusting of snow, while only 50 miles or so southeast of there, several inches are on the ground.

Again, that is my call for now. Take it with a grain of salt. I will make necessary adjustments through this evening, and my final call will come out later this evening.