So what's next?

After an icy start to our weekend, we will see some warmer temps work our way with time. In fact, by Monday, temps will be in the 50s for many and then some spots might even hit 70 Tuesday.

The 0z Friday run of the European model wound up bringing a big winter storm to the Southeast at the end of next week. The reason? It left a piece of the trough behind in the Southwest US as a closed upper low early in the week that then slowly worked eastward as the week unfolded.

The last 2 runs of the Euro, as well as almost all other model guidance, do not leave the energy behind and instead brings the whole trough through the eastern US in one piece, which would mean rain and even some thunderstorms mid-week followed by colder air, but no wintry precip.

However, the differences between the 0z Friday run of the Euro and today's run are extremely subtle early this week....in other words, on the Euro, the difference in the cutoff solution and the non-cutoff solution are not great. Below is a chart from the 0z Saturday and the 0z Friday Euro....this is at the point the cutoff forms on the Friday run. Notice how similar overall they are.

 0z Sat run valid Monday evening:

0z Friday run valid Monday evening:

What's the point? Well, I would say odds overall don't favor the cutoff scenario. However, it is quite possible we do see that solution come back in future model runs. It does remind me a bit to the modeling behavior leading up to the system about 8 days ago.

One last nugget..... the NAM continues to cut the low off in the Southwest, like yesterday's Euro did. So, at least there's one model holdout.

6z NAM valid Tue afternoon:

Overall, I think February will present more winter weather chances in the region....I like the overall look of the pattern. The subtropical jet looks to become active, and there will still be some cold air around at times...

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Wintry weather arrives today...

Some wintry weather will spread into the region today.... today's video is all about it. Please give it a look.....



Here are some general NC accumulation ideas...

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Afternoon thoughts....

Not a lot of change here. Just finished up the conference call with the Raleigh NWS, and their overall ideas are similar to mine. They will issue a Winter Weather Advisory for most of their counties, valid tomorrow afternoon and evening, with their afternoon forecast package.

Specifically for the Triad, they are calling for a brief period of snow, then a change to sleet and freezing rain.

Some of my thoughts...

The modeling continues to be fairly underwhelming with precip amounts. However, the higher-resolution models are printing out generally 0.1" to 0.2" of precip, which if that's correct, would be enough to cause some travel issues due to cold ground conditions and sub-freezing air temps for many.

So, no real changes from me. This is not a huge, crippling winter storm. However, enough wintry precip could fall to cause some travel issues in some areas by later tomorrow.

The degree to which any travel problems develop will depends on the exact type and mixture of precip types. In spots that wind up with a sleet and freezing rain mix, that is where conditions will be the worst.

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