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Wintry 1/20 - 1/23 Winter Storm

griteater said:
Correct. There was a Miller A in March (I think 2015 or thereabouts) that crushed the Triad with freezing rain
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I think you’re thinking of the March 2014 storm. It was a Miller A ice storm, and also not well-forecasted. Came in colder than expected and a Winter Storm Warning wasn’t issued until the storm was already underway. I was in Greensboro then and it knocked out power for days. We got 3” of IP/SN (mostly IP) and a good 0.25-0.5” of ZR. North of the Triad it was mostly snow, though. Ironically, it ended up being in the 60s a day after the storm, lol. Below is a map, though they unfortunately don’t have ZR accumulations on here.

E6DAEF20-06FC-49CD-9FE1-4C9C9C0A8A98.gif
 
Snowflowxxl said:
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Getting a bit more concerned again for here and nearby coastal locations. This 12Z UK run has once again all ZR on and near the coast where it shows snow starting late Friday afternoon or early Fri evening and continuing Fri night. This run has nearly 0.75” of ZR SAV-CHS. @Stormsfury I’m sure is following this. This is the 5th out of the last 6 runs with something similar. Also, the overall 12Z model trend shifted back to a little colder and SE from what I can tell.

The problem is that once the strong wedge comes in Friday, winds stay NNE, which allows no modification from the much warmer ocean. The very cold and strong (1040ish again) parent NE high is just about as cold as the one associated with this past weekend’s storm plus there’s more snowcover than there was then between here and the NE. The heart of the wedge is headed all of the way to the coast unlike the much more inland aim of the prior one.

Climo says ZR of this magnitude is extremely rare here (once every few decades or so). So, at least that is on my side. However, a smaller ZR event is obviously not nearly as rare here. We had 0.10” in late January of 2014 and ~0.50” within the big January of 2018 winter storm. That one came very close to causing widespread outages and did cause some but it stopped just short of a huge problem when the ZR finally changed to sleet and then snow.

There were several smallish ZRs in 2/1979, I think 1980, and 1/1988.
 
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Small differences so far
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superjames1992 said:
I think you’re thinking of the March 2014 storm. It was a Miller A ice storm, and also not well-forecasted. Came in colder than expected and a Winter Storm Warning wasn’t issued until the storm was already underway. I was in Greensboro then and it knocked out power for days. We got 3” of IP/SN (mostly IP) and a good 0.25-0.5” of ZR. North of the Triad it was mostly snow, though. Ironically, it ended up being in the 60s a day after the storm, lol. Below is a map, though they unfortunately don’t have ZR accumulations on here.

View attachment 107887
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That was it. Just looked up this article. It shows the Miller A track (red L). Has 0.5 ice in Burlington and Asheboro

 
Local Forecast/NWS has been flip-flopping back & forth, either between Ice Ice Baby to Snow.. Down here on the coast..

Honestly gotta feel for them, It's a very tough forecast.. I'm expecting cold rain or Ice..
Warm-Nosed out, with freezing rain.. Snow, (maybe) on the back side..

Freezing rain is looking increasingly likely on Friday. And although
there is still considerable model differences regarding ice amounts,
some guidance show that there is at least the possibility of a
damaging ice storm here along the coast. The setup is a classic one
with cold air being re-enforced at the surface as high pressure
noses in while a warm nose aloft associated with low pressure
developing offshore overrun the wedge. The warm nose grows so strong
in fact that the immediate coast gets above freezing even in the
normally reliable blended thickness output. This will act to
decrease ice accums in an already uncertain forecast (models often
seem to underestimate the strength of the cold wedge). Even should
this occur a change back to freezing rain is expected area-wide
later in the afternoon as the deepening low passes by. Later Friday
night as the cold air deepens some sleet or snow may mix in but the
deep layer moisture will be waning fast. The dominant ptype still
appears to be freezing rain through most of the event. Saturday
highs will be above freezing possibly allowing for some ice melt but
there may also be a good setup for black ice Saturday night as lows
tumble into the 20s.
 
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