Accumulating snow ahead?

I encourage you to watch today's video for all of the graphics that go along with this morning's discussion:



A chilly and active weather pattern is in place this week across the Southeast. One pretty weak disturbance will move in tomorrow morning and bring the chance of some flurries or a little light snow to some areas late tonight into tomorrow morning. However, this system looks rather deprived of significant precipitation.

A much more significant system will then roll into the region by Wednesday night. While some computer modeling has been indicating a suppressed solution where more of the precipitation remains south of a large portion of NC, I do not feel this is correct. At this point, I favor a solution of a surface low tracking from near the FL Panhandle to just off the Carolina coast Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Assuming that idea is correct, a strip of accumulating snow would occur from northern MS and AL up through north GA, Upstate and parts of northern SC and then much of NC.

It all hinges in this:

This is a snapshot from the 0z European model. If that energy of the Deep South remains more tightly bundled, like the European, UKMET, NAVGEM, NAM, and many Euro and GFS ensemble members show, the idea I have laid out above has merit.

What can go wrong? First of all, there is only so far NW this can trend this time around due to the big low in SE Canada and the Northeast, so some additional NW ticks are possible, but I don't think this winds up a big rainstorm for western and central NC. Areas in northern SC though...it could get trickier.

If they energy is more strung out, then a weaker, further south solution is possible. That is definitely a possibility, but I don't think it's a likelihood at this point.

In fact, history tells me that if anything, we might see that upper level energy trend stronger as the models begin to 'see' it better. But we will see.

Things often change a lot with these systems, but that's the way I see it as of now.