Call Map and discussion....

The winter weather event is underway for the Lower Mississippi Valley into MS and parts of AL. Not a whole lot of changes to the ideas down that way.....going to be a very significant winter storm. Areas from Birmingham south to Montgomery, and in MS, roughly between Hwy 82 down through and south of the I-20 corridor, icing is a big concern with significant freezing rain accumulations possible.

North of the freezing rain area, north MS, north AL, and much of Tennessee are in for a good snow event. Widespread 3-7" totals looks likely, and some areas in the Tennessee Valley could sail past the 8" mark. Same general idea for north Georgia, although the closer you get to Atlanta, the more tricky is gets.

For the Carolinas, the model precip output has been on a general upward trend today for many areas, especially the short-range mesoscale models. The last couple of NAM runs have printed out over 1" of liquid equivalent precip for the Charlotte metro and even more for the Upstate of SC. I have not gone this bullish yet, but it does make me pay attention.

Here is the call map for the Carolinas. Keep in mind that everybody, except possible the northern foothills, is fair game to see a transition to light freezing rain or freezing drizzle by Monday evening or night, and a glazing of ice is likely. These are snow accumulations on the map. In the area of highest ice concern, 0.25" to even 0.5" of ice is possible on top of some snow accumulation.

These are general ideas, and there will always be localized variations, even on a perfect forecast map. And don't take the exact lines drawn as absolute truth.....give it some wiggle room one way or another. Also keep in mind there will almost certainly be some higher totals than indicated in some mountain areas.

Bottom line is it looks like travel will gradually become difficult (if not impossible in many areas) from later tonight in SC and through the morning and day tomorrow in NC.