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Wintry Previous storm discussion

We had 17 inches in Greenville. That 6-8 is so off its not even funny. I measured on my dads elevated aluminum jonboat that had an inch or 2 inches of melt on the bottom and 14 inches of good snow. Was a beast of a storm.
This storm was a horrible bust for CLT metro. The forecast was for widespread 8-12” and literally there wasn’t a flake.
 
Figured I'd bring this here since I don't think areas in NC will experience anything as bad especially since the lead up likely wasn't that cold and it's likely going to just be a front end glaze, maybe up to .25 in areas if it even happens.

Dont you need temps solidly below freezing to get significant icing ? Seems like 31 or 32 is too warm to do major icing.

Nah. Not when the infamous 2/12/14 storm just as one example had this...

https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ga/augusta/KAGS/date/2014-2-12

Sadly with the new version of wunderground history, in some cases you don't see the precip and you don't here, but since I've looked a lot, it starts out as heavy cold rain, then switches to frozen and pretty much hangs around 31-32 degrees the entire day. That produced a couple of the pictures from this blog at home (as I was away then)...

https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/ice-age-ice-storms/

And I'd say at least with this case, it affected life a good bit at least in the southern part of the county that didn't have Georgia Power and has an electric company that's out in the country instead. I remember my parents said they lost their power at about 9ish in the morning on 2/12. They did not get it back for almost a week. My friend was talking about not being able to take a shower and having to go to a place that has power to do it.
 
The grand daddy of huge cold air damming events:

This storm was an endurance race, lasting several days. It was a big sleet fest at RDU, w/ 6-7" of what was mostly sleet falling, nearly matching the mark received in Wake Co during the big Feb 87 event which produce 8" of sleet in Wake Forest.
compday.69.217.128.238.349.7.45.0.gif

compday.69.217.128.238.349.7.46.50.gif

December 15-18 1930 NC Snowmap.png
 
This storm is underrated if you ask me. Temps fell into the mid 20s with ripping fatties
59f1061eb80e95e3e2dd5f70049bc3a7.gif


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That was my first storm on Talkweather. GSO got shafted a bit, but March 2009 made up for it.

Long time, no see, SD! I moved to Durham from Florida this summer. :)
 
Was searching thru my winter storm archive for big events on this date & I found this gem in 1915.
December 20-21 1915 NC Snowmap.png


Apparently was the only storm SE of RDU-CLT that entire winter. When the dust finally settled, Fayetteville ended up being epically shafted.

Winter of 1915-16 NC Snowmap.png
 
Since we are within a month of the 20th anniversary of the Carolina Crusher, there will be a lot of folks looking back at that over the next several weeks. I’m wondering if there is case study available to discuss that storm and just what went wrong from a forecast standpoint for it to be missed. We’ve certainly seen 1-2 inch forecasts turn into 4-6 several times over the years, but it still baffles me that many areas went from absolutely no mention of snow to getting 12-24 inches 36 hours later.
 
Since we are within a month of the 20th anniversary of the Carolina Crusher, there will be a lot of folks looking back at that over the next several weeks. I’m wondering if there is case study available to discuss that storm and just what went wrong from a forecast standpoint for it to be missed. We’ve certainly seen 1-2 inch forecasts turn into 4-6 several times over the years, but it still baffles me that many areas went from absolutely no mention of snow to getting 12-24 inches 36 hours later.

I wouldn't be the best person to answer this, but I think people that remember this case say that the models from back then did a poor job of picking up convection or something that contributed and by the time that it started adjusting back, it was too late for it to not be a huge surprise.

What I do know is models have progressed so much since then that there are less huge surprises. Even cases like December 2010, there was a hint that a winter storm was possible and it just needed the phase to pan out.

Edit: Now I'm looking into this, and it looks like the computer models had a hard time handling a low pressure system in Canada, along with the system that produced the Carolina Crusher.
 
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I wouldn't be the best person to answer this, but I think people that remember this case say that the models from back then did a poor job of picking up convection or something that contributed and by the time that it started adjusting back, it was too late for it to not be a huge surprise.

What I do know is models have progressed so much since then that there are less huge surprises. Even cases like December 2010, there was a hint that a winter storm was possible and it just needed the phase to pan out.

Edit: Now I'm looking into this, and it looks like the computer models had a hard time handling a low pressure system in Canada, along with the system that produced the Carolina Crusher.

This same system produced an amazing second of back to back weekend major ZRs in the ATL area and in much of N GA, which wasn't good for the Superbowl being held in ATL even tough it was indoors.

Per wiki: "In January 2000, two ice storms struck the Atlanta area within a week of each other. The second storm occurred during the week the Super Bowl was hosted. Despite the rare adverse weather conditions, city and state crews kept streets and sidewalks free of ice, and MARTA public transport kept running."
 
9 years ago this month, one of the very best of the last decade for my area. In a rare case, TWC nailed this snow forecast compared to the NWS/local mets, they were the most bullish/aggressive calling for 4-8 inches. I got 6.5 inches. Hartsfield-Jackson Int'l Airport got 4 inches I think because of the constant mixing of sleet/freezing rain.


 
9 years ago this month, one of the very best of the last decade for my area. In a rare case, TWC nailed this snow forecast compared to the NWS/local mets, they were the most bullish/aggressive calling for 4-8 inches. I got 6.5 inches. Hartsfield-Jackson Int'l Airport got 4 inches I think because of the constant mixing of sleet/freezing rain.



That's awesome. Local forecasts were better than they are now. Wish it would go back to that format.
 
I wouldn't be the best person to answer this, but I think people that remember this case say that the models from back then did a poor job of picking up convection or something that contributed and by the time that it started adjusting back, it was too late for it to not be a huge surprise.

What I do know is models have progressed so much since then that there are less huge surprises. Even cases like December 2010, there was a hint that a winter storm was possible and it just needed the phase to pan out.

Edit: Now I'm looking into this, and it looks like the computer models had a hard time handling a low pressure system in Canada, along with the system that produced the Carolina Crusher.
Thank you. I remember for those of us in the CLT metro area, we had a few inches of snow fall on Saturday afternoon and evening followed by a a light freezing rain most of the day on Sunday so schools and a lot of businesses were already closing for Monday. I remember the first mention of any precipitation for Monday that I had seen was on the 6pm Sunday newscast and WBTV had added a chance of light snow showers on Monday afternoon for areas S/E of I-85. Then on the 11pm they said that there could be up to an inch accumulation in those areas, but it wouldn’t be a huge deal because those were areas that already had several inches on the ground. I got to sleep in the next morning and when I woke up just after 8am, the NWS has just issued a WSW for 2-4 inches of snow but at that point I looked outside and could tell that we already had at least an inch. I was living in southeast Cabarrus County at the time near the Rocky River and Stanly County line, so I was right on the northwest fringe of the 10-14 inch totals... 10 miles southeast of me had 18-20 inches and 10 miles northwest of me had only 3-4
 
9 years ago this month, one of the very best of the last decade for my area. In a rare case, TWC nailed this snow forecast compared to the NWS/local mets, they were the most bullish/aggressive calling for 4-8 inches. I got 6.5 inches. Hartsfield-Jackson Int'l Airport got 4 inches I think because of the constant mixing of sleet/freezing rain.




Man this makes me miss snow even more. Thanks .


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Man this makes me miss snow even more. Thanks .


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The most memorable thing about that storm was when the first band of snow moved in from the SW moving NE along the I-20 corridor. Half of my snow came from that one band. I got a quick 3 inches in less than 2 hrs from that, it was so heavy I could barely see the houses across the street from me.

I think I still have some local news clips during the peak of this storm, if I find them I'll upload them and share them here.
 
The most memorable thing about that storm was when the first band of snow moved in from the SW moving NE along the I-20 corridor. Half of my snow came from that one band. I got a quick 3 inches in less than 2 hrs from that, it was so heavy I could barely see the houses across the street from me.

I think I still have some local news clips during the peak of this storm, if I find them I'll upload them and share them here.
This storm was also one of the few times that there was no worries about the temps the day going into it. The day before in CLT, the high was right around 30 and you could just tell by the way the clouds looked as the rolled in throughout the afternoon that a good snow was coming. That first band hit us right about 4:00am and within 15 minutes of the first flakes, everything was covered white
 
I don't know if anybody saw this, but Tomer Burg posted the p-type and vorticity maps from the Christmas day 2010 storm. Although unfortunatly the post is low resolution.
 
The quality of the photo is horrible but this was the Dec. 26, 2010 snow and we thought my parents golf cart, big tires and all, could handle it Lol.... nope.

1578063016835.png
 
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