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Wintry January 29th-30th ARCC Slam Dunk Winter Weather Threat

A dusting on the cars here 6 miles east of Birmingham. Looks like it’s about over.

I’m never looking at the GFS again ?

Good luck everyone else!
 
That precip has really dried up and just poofed over Jeff Co. I wonder if those of us over in East Al to the east will even see a flake. Nothing here yet.
 
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
 
deltadog03 said:
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
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Models are essentially tools to be used in forecasting, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each is a big part of forecasting. Globals are useful for getting in range of a threat but once inside 48 hours it’s tough to beat the 3km NAM combo. Most of the 3km NAM runs were showing a dusting at best and no snow for many areas, it had a few bad runs yesterday afternoon and overnight which it sometimes had right before an event starts but overall it did very well. The RGEM did great too and was more consistent even up until go time. The NWS here in Raleigh has been burned a few times in recent years by following the global output instead of the 3km NAM sand RGEM. I’ve found personally that these two models, especially a blend when they differ somewhat, is the absolute best way to go inside 48 hours. I do wish for the folks in AL, MS and other areas that the higher snow totals of the globals were right but these cold chasing the moisture setups are something they struggle to get right.
 
deltadog03 said:
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
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A huge shoutout to everyone who spent the long hours, late nights, tracking this system. Thank you!
 
Total precip at CHA for the entire event was only 0.04". Had light snow for about 30 min. No accumulation. Still above freezing as well at this hour with 35. The fail here was due to multiple factors...1) precip ending earlier than progged, 2) precip much lighter than progged, along with 3) cold air moving in slower than progged, and 4) cold not as cold as progged when it finally arrived.
 
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If we moved banter from this thread there'd be nothing left to read..... however, with that said please bash mets or whine, complain, gripe whatever you want to do in the wambulance thread, that's what it's there for. Who knows maybe a handful of people still have a shot at some token flakes today and would actually like to discuss that and maybe not, either way, appropriate threads, please!
 
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NWS still says rain/snow 80%, which seems high. I have a two hour window for some token flakes about 5-7pm
 
For areas in NC it's interesting what the high res models are showing... what appears to be a line of strong convection on the leading edge of the cold front. It'll be interesting to see what type of precipitation falls in this line if it indeed develops.
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Soundings seem to support the back part of this line falling as heavy snow, maybe thunder snow if it is convective in nature.
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snowlover91 said:
For areas in NC it's interesting what the high res models are showing... what appears to be a line of strong convection on the leading edge of the cold front. It'll be interesting to see what type of precipitation falls in this line if it indeed develops.
View attachment 14236

Soundings seem to support the back part of this line falling as heavy snow, maybe thunder snow if it is convective in nature.
View attachment 14237
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Now that would be amazing, even if we didn't really get anything to accumulate. I had already written off seeing any snow here from this one.
 
Brick Tamland said:
Now that would be amazing, even if we didn't really get anything to accumulate. I had already written off seeing any snow here from this one.
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I wouldn't count on any snow from this. The 12z 3km NAM is coming in much warmer at the surface and doesn't have as much of a convective look to it. I would expect rain as the RGEM seems to be verifying the best with this event.
 
Blue_Ridge_Escarpment said:
Climo usually wins out. Hard to get accumulating snow in MS, AL, and Most of GA outside of northern part.
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That's what I say. The general public has no idea what a "clipper system" is, but with these, until there's snow on the ground, there's no need to cancel anything. In the deep south, it's just really hard to get meaningful snow from one of them, even if the models say so. For the past 2 days, the models slowly backed off and when it came radar watching time, it just wasn't there. No surprise. Heck, even here in NW Tennessee where we get some snow periodically, the forecast snow amount crept backward for the last few days, until all mention was taken out of the forecast yesterxay afternoon. That said, it sure is cold here this morning! But yes, climatology usually wins. When in doubt, lean towards it.
 
cyclogent said:
Total precip at CHA for the entire event was only 0.04". Had light snow for about 30 min. No accumulation. Still above freezing as well at this hour with 35. The fail here was due to multiple factors...1) precip ending earlier than progged, 2) precip much lighter than progged, along with 3) cold air moving in slower than progged, and 4) cold not as cold as progged when it finally arrived.
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My house recorded .09 rain and I actually mustered a dusting by some miracle at my house west of Soddy Daisy. I’ll consider it a win given I saw no other areas driving around that had anything.
 
These showers will probably have graupel and some thunder and lightning, very quick cooling aloft almost like a ULL, could see a burst of snow in these thundershowers but I’d say graupel/small hail
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@Webberweather53 It seems the 3km NAM and HRRR have been hinting at a convective element to the system as it crosses Central NC later today. Surface temps ahead of the front skyrocket into the upper 50s to near 60 in areas while the upper levels are cooling quickly. IF this line of storms develops as modeled, do you think this line could have some small hail, heavy wet snow (dynamic cooling) or graupel mixed in?
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
@snowlover91 ive seen snow/graupel happen with a similar setup at 47F, there will be some sfc instability so I would not be surprised
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Thanks, I was thinking graupel or snow could be possible if an intense convective line forms as it would effectively mix down the colder air aloft and rapidly crash the temperatures. This isn't a setup I've seen very often so I'm curious to see what happens.
 
snowlover91 said:
@Webberweather53 It seems the 3km NAM and HRRR have been hinting at a convective element to the system as it crosses Central NC later today. Surface temps ahead of the front skyrocket into the upper 50s to near 60 in areas while the upper levels are cooling quickly. IF this line of storms develops as modeled, do you think this line could have some small hail, heavy wet snow (dynamic cooling) or graupel mixed in?
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I'm not Webber, but if you get convection with low freezing levels, you will almost certainly have hail or graupel if the convection is strong enough. I am going to strongly doubt any convection will exist that will be strong enough to produce those results around here. Maybe an isolated cell, but that's about it, as far as I can see.
 
Rain Cold said:
I'm not Webber, but if you get convection with low freezing levels, you will almost certainly have hail or graupel if the convection is strong enough. I am going to strongly doubt any convection will exist that will be strong enough to produce those results around here. Maybe an isolated cell, but that's about it, as far as I can see.
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Yeah I'm curious to see what happens with it, the high res models have been consistent with some convective storms forming along the frontal boundary. With upper 50s to low 60s in front of the front and 30s behind it combined with cold air at the upper levels it might be enough to bring some graupel in that band. I remember a few years ago a system with a cold core aloft and warmer 40s at the surface the produced some graupel. Perhaps this will be similar.
 
Myfrotho704_ said:
Pattern is similar to this one, this produced convective snow in the northern midlands, CLT area, not saying it’s happening this time at all but pattern is sorta similar View attachment 14245
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Nice find, yeah I think that was the one I was thinking about, I was in the Raleigh area at the time and saw a good bit of graupel as it moved through.
 
Storm5 said:
Lol this isnt true at all . Maybe in this type of setup . But the past decade here has been amazing


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I guess the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Some take joy in the garden variety 1-3 inches. Just depends where you are and where you’ve been. Here, that’s not even enough to cancel church.
 
NWTENN said:
That's what I say. The general public has no idea what a "clipper system" is, but with these, until there's snow on the ground, there's no need to cancel anything. In the deep south, it's just really hard to get meaningful snow from one of them, even if the models say so. For the past 2 days, the models slowly backed off and when it came radar watching time, it just wasn't there. No surprise. Heck, even here in NW Tennessee where we get some snow periodically, the forecast snow amount crept backward for the last few days, until all mention was taken out of the forecast yesterxay afternoon. That said, it sure is cold here this morning! But yes, climatology usually wins. When in doubt, lean towards it.
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I figured Rosie might get something, but south of that is a crap shoot with a clipper. They have to dig pretty deep to get down past Marietta. Usually the dusting is north of Gainesville. Anytime a chase is involved it usually ends in tears :)
 
Sitting at 29 with about 1/2" on the ground. It was 32 degrees with small flakes still coming down when my 6 year old woke me up at 8:30 screaming about snow. You could hear it melting in the gutters, but that's slowing down already.
 
Flakes are flying here in northeastern Cobb, not many though.
 
Wow the cold air is literally chasing the remaining moisture we have left. Maybe I’ll get those token flakes after all! lol
 
The timing/duration at ATL (~3-5 hours for ALL of the precip, not just the snow, and starting ~6-9 AM in ATL/ending late AM) and amounts for ATL (near 0.25” is what has fallen?) are about what modeling consensus suggested. But the temps were 8-10+ degrees warmer than what consensus showed!! That’s what got totally missed. Why were the temps so much warmer than modeled??
 
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