was more of a “look at this crazy thing” post. I think there’s some merit to NC getting near 0 with rad cooling in the colder arctic airmass that settles in on Monday night with snowpack. Perhaps GFS sees ZR on the ground for ATL and takes it lunar
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Wintry January 23rd-27th 2026
- Thread starter SD
- Start date
iGRXY
Member
Canadian FRAM was 0.5-0.75” of ZR. The RDPS was up to 3” of sleet and anywhere from 0.3”-0.75” of FRAM ZR and we were only at 7AM at the end of it a run. I hate to speak in absolutes like this but the writing is all but on the wall for the Piedmont, upstate, and NE Georgia. We might be able to squeak out some initial front end snow, but it’s going to quickly switch to sleet and then ZR. I’m expecting probably 8-12 hours of sleet and easily 24 hours of ZR. I’ll make my first call map tomorrow on totals but my preliminary estimates as of tonight would be 2-5” of sleet and 0.5-1.25” of ZR with the highest of those totals along and north of 85
Btownheel
Member
I’ve lived in central NC for about 85% of my life (41) and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it go negative true temp. 1 or 2 with wind chill of -10 on a snowpack after 96, yup. But can’t remember negative values.
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buckinbronco
Member
Yeah FFC mentioned the Euro on their afternoon discussion, see below:
This has been a tough system to forecast, but we want to talk a bit
about the "northward shift" and why we look at ensembles. We have
been looking closely at the Euro model which has caused this
northward shift thinking. If you look at just the deterministic then
sure it shows a northward shift but if you dive deeper into the Euro
ensembles, this deterministic run is a bit of an outlier. This is
why we have not bought into the northward shift completely at this
time. We would like to see more consistency between model runs
especially with the sampled low pressure system before shifting our
thinking.
weatherguy
Member
ECMWF got peer pressured by GFS around the 20th lol, but GFS coming to join Euro now:
iGRXY
Member
I’ll be honest, this is probably the low end IMO. I really don’t see how the upstate, NE Georgia, and central NC don’t end up with totals pushing to at least 0.75” of ice on top of several inches of sleet
The subzero footprint is where primarily heavy ice accumulations have been forecasted by the model to have occurred. I suppose enough ice accretion is close enough to snow? Sounding here is -5!
And remember sleet takes forever to melt, and with cold temperatures basically all next week, it’s going to last a good while.Someone and maybe all that area from Greensboro to DC is going to get several inches of sleet…everything would be a block of ice.
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sackjalding
Member
Ukie looking a tad cooler and stronger cad perhaps?
I was wondering about that too. If that’s what it’s doing, that’s consistent with its strong cold bias due to too much radiational cooling over snowcover. It’s been too cold at night over snowcover for years.
tractor girl
Member
I was in Athens for the 73 ice storm. This would be the second in my life.
No power, no way to go anywhere.. the deafening silence other than the constant... crack..... crash, crack........... crash of treetops and branches falling to the ground day and night.
It was truly surreal
Still competely different from the GFS/Canadian camp for GA… no winter weather at all. Crazy. Nobody knows what we’ll re ally get
Which model should I root for in southern Illinois.
Probably about to witness my biggest snowstorm ever. (Previous biggest was 10 inches)
buckinbronco
Member
UK has the wedge slam on the brakes at Gainesville and never makes it any further westward. Would be a good solution for ATL to avoid the ice.
Sctvman
Member
Thinking of last year’s snow in Charleston (1 year ago this moment) and how it was 2”, maybe 3” of snow max, mostly sleet, and how it stuck for four days. The sleet just makes everything caked on and it does not come off unless you have multiple days of melting. And ice is much worse
has spoken. I needed this from Bradley tonight. Dunking on us with the sleetier solution. Need it 
iGRXY
Member
The UK drops almost 2.5” of QPF all frozen here. And it’s not good with low level cold air.
NCSNOW
Member
Flo
Member
Nothing to see here for Columbia. Forget the euro time for sleep. All jokes aside, what a joke.
While we wait, I have a dumb question. The warm layer depicted by some of the models is very warm, much warmer than your normal CAD ice threat. Could this minimize ice accrual any? Not your normal super cooled raindrops that freeze instantly or no effect whatsoever?
dsaur
Member
Be glad for the rain. It will cut way back on the damage. Wash that ice off before the limb cracks, or the tree falls.
it won't matter if the surface temps are 20 degrees. Once you get in the upper 20s you can start talking about different precipitation
Actually you didn't answer my question. Let me clarify, I didn't think it would be different precipitation, I know if would still be zr. But just like wind and precip rate can affect how efficiently ice accrues, I was wondering if warming the raindrops through a much warmer layer would affect the efficiency that it accrues. I figured it wouldn't but just throwing it out there
You can think of it as a hot and cool wax. If it's hotter it can splash and be thinner when it freezes. If it's colder it can freeze instantly without splashing and build up more. Does that answer your question?
Yes it would have an effect if your surface temps are marginal, but if they’re around 20F, droplets can quickly fall below freezing at temps that cold.
Not a drop of that 0Z UKMET 3-4” qpf in ATL is wintry! The coldest N ATL gets is 36 and the airport only 41! This is while Athens drops to 32, GSP drops to 27 and Charlotte 25. This is with a NE parent sfc high way up at 1041 mb, a very high echelon strength vs similar other CAD setups. It has a surface low pass well to the west in AL. Is this even possible?
So, I may assign myself homework of seeing if I can find a similar setup by looking at old wx maps if I have the time.
I noticed the same on the CMC. The wintry precip barley entered the city core. It hits Athens but the airport is fine. Its weird man. Its see what the EURO has to say in a few.
sackjalding
Member
UK and CMC wedge both inched a little closer to atl than the previous run though, from what I could tell.
Brent
Member
Yeah I'm starting to believe this could be historic here too I mean I've already seen people talking about it anyway(even the NWS openly mentioned it in their discussion this morning) and just seeing these models gives it an even higher chance
Not to mention Norman already issued a warning and I've never seen that so far out. Clearly they are seeing it too
Tulsa record is only 14 inches and the only thing I've seen close is when I went to Kansas City last year
New Euro never gets KATL below freezing. Hilarious
What is the Euro smoking? This is so weird! This is scary and crazy!
Packsox03
Member
I’m genuinely beginning to wonder if the big universities in NC as well as clemson have class at all next week. I can’t imagine anything before Wednesday and that feels a bit optimistic. I’ve never seen values this high anywhere really and it’s just pure ice and with cold temperatures after, this is going to take awhile to melt and infrastructure just isn’t built for a storm of this magnitude
It does by a smidge. And I mean a smidge
Well technically the airport station is at the SW corner of the perimeter. But yes you’re correct parts of the city definitely do
What was the ice totals?
Best I could tell it looked like 8-10 hours of ZR late sat night through early Sunday morning for the NE side of Atlanta. Temps 30-32
Honestly though, the GFS and Euro are kinda lining up for ATL. I mean GFS is slightly colder, which caused more ZR Totals but I noticed each GFS run, the temps are slightly warmer. This is interesting.