Next system heading in...

>> Monday, January 17, 2011

Here is today's edition of the Carolina Weather Video. Couple of systems this week.



I hope everybody had a great weekend. After not taking a day 'off' from closely watching the weather for over a month, I tried my best to take a step back over the weekend. I love my job, and it is such a privilege to this for a living. However, I needed to back away for a bit just to refresh my mind. But I couldn't resist completely....kept taking a peek at a couple of things yesterday, especially the end of this week.


More on that in a second....let's talk about today and tonight. An area of low pressure is getting its act together in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico this morning. Rain is widespread through the Florida panhandle into southern Georgia, and that area of rain will lift north into the Carolinas later today and tonight.

I anticipate some light rain making it into the Piedmont later this afternoon, but the bulk of the heavier rain will be this evening. We are in a cold air damming regime, so highs will struggle to make it into the lower 40s around the Triad....maybe some mid 40s around Charlotte and the Triangle.

This evening, locations in the foothills could see temps dip to near or just below freezing, meaning a period of freezing rain is possible. However, if that does occur, at this point I only anticipate some relatively minor icing on elevated surfaces, and this would mainly be in the northern foothills.

Up in the mountains, a period of snow is quite possible, and some areas might wind up with at least several inches depending on whether or not heavier precip can make it in there.

System later in the week....

I will discuss this in the video, but the modeling has taken a shift. Earlier model runs were indicating colder air arriving, followed then by another southern branch system that spread winter weather possibilities through the Tennessee Valley and upper Southeast. However, the models at this point have generally shifted to showing the entire kit and kaboodle coming through at generally the same time (Thursday night into Friday) instead of cold air first, then the southern branch system. I show why this is the case on the video.

So, for the time being, the threat of winter weather later this week in non-mountains areas of the Carolinas has diminished. However, if the southern branch feature can remain some separation from the main upper tough coming through, then that possibility would increase again. We will watch and see.

By the way, looks cold again behind this for the upcoming weekend.

2 comments:

Anonymous 9:57 AM  

Thanks Matthew.

I have seen and heard complaints on this blog and elsewhere that people are upset with these snowfalls, because they aren't "huge". I guess people don't realize that "huge" snowstorms are not a common thing here. Things like '04 aren't going to happen every year, or every 5-10 years possibly, for that matter. Two decent snow storms, plus several dustings before the middle of January is pretty nice in my book. We don't get huge snows because we are "due".

Thanks for all you do with this blog. It is refreshing to see "behind the scenes" thinking.

Matthew East 2:59 PM  

Sure thing! It has been a very nice winter for sure. While there is some disappointment with total amounts, the amount of winter weather-producing systems we have seen to this point in the season constitutes a great season.

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