Arctic air in place...

Here is today's edition of the Carolina Weather Video. Give it a look. I take a look at the good, bad, and ugly with my ideas for the last winter storm. I always want to show what went right and what went wrong with the forecast and see what we can learn from it. I also look at another big snow event in the mountains and the New England states, plus we look at the pattern ahead as we get deeper into January.



Please see the video for a run-down of the good and bad with my forecasts leading up to our latest winter storm. Many of the overall ideas were good....snow, ending as a period of freezing rain with a glazing of ice on top of the snow. The heavier totals, as forecast, were from the southern Piedmont into the Upstate of SC and north Georgia, with amounts tapering off the farther north and east you went. The Triad did eventually get into the 1-2" category for snow accums, while the northern foothills eventually eclipsed 2" in most areas. The Triangle got very little snow, but I always had verbalized the Triangle as being right on the line for precip types. I was way underdone on snow totals in the Sandhills over to the southeast coast of NC....they did quite well! And certainly the Triad verified on the lower end of or below the ranges I listed.

As I mentioned in the video, the modeling that ramped up the QPF to over 1" in the southern Piedmont wound up being way overdone. Looks like CLT wound up with about 0.5" liquid equivalent....around 0.75" for GSP and around 0.25" for GSO.

So, in future systems, I will be skeptical when I see the NAM or the hi-res WRF rapidly ramp up QPF within 24 hours of an event.

Going forward....

Another huge upslope event for the NC mountains continues today. Some areas will likely wind up exceeding a foot of new snow once again. What a winter the mountains are having!

And our low pressure has bombed into a huge winter storm for the Northeast. Some places in New England will again exceed two feet!

We stay in the deep freeze through the end of the work week with 30s for Piedmont highs and some teens for lows. We should see lots of sun though, so the roads that are not shaded should really improve.

Next system....

I am watching the next system...probably late Monday into Tuesday. There is a pronounced cold air damming signature with that one, so I guess I can't rule out a little wintry precip in the favored CAD areas at onset. But at the moment, this still looks like a mostly liquid event for the lower elevations.