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Wintry April Fools? (1-2) Surprise Storm

Snowing in Laurens!! Bone chilly 43 here! Heavy precip missing me S and E! RAP and all the models showing that, nailed it!
 
Tarheel1 said:
Looking at radar, CLT looks to get fringed! Flurries at best! ??
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This may be the greatest April fools joke of all time. There’s plenty of heavy precip to our south. Someone will see snow. It just won’t be us ??
 
Gonna be a close call for me in NE Charlotte later this morning, thank goodness I'm on the eastern side of Mecklenburg county for this one. Nothing is reaching the ground here yet although there's some light precipitation on radar.
 
Definitely looks like if anyone is going to see 1" of slushy accumulation from this event, that area obviously shifted significantly southeastward overnight. East-central Mecklenburg, Union, Cabarrus, Stanly, west-central Montgomery, and west-central Anson is the area at least in NC where we're most likely to see a few isolated spots pick up as much as a slushy inch or so of accumulation.
April 2 2019 NC Snowfall Forecast Map.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
Feel free to believe what you want and hug your favorite suite of models, but I think you'll end up being wrong in this regard & "meaningful" precipitation will in fact make it to or even past the I-85 corridor (which is what the professional forecasters at NWS GSP are hedging towards as well).

Warm ground temps play a role in snow accumulation but its usually overstated and that doesn't make it necessarily very difficult or anywhere near impossible to get accumulation (even significant accum) if precipitation rates are heavy. There are innumerable examples of this and this case won't be any different if precip rates are heavy.
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Webberweather53 said:
I just don't think we'll have an issue getting precipitation far enough NW in this instance.

The 3km NAM struggles to push the precipitation further inland due to convective feedback issues in the model that lead to spurious deepening of the low off the SC/NC coast that ultimately deters inland moisture transport vs the 12z NAM whose large-scale depiction of the coastal low is likely more realistic & in line w/ other models.

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Looks like the 3km NAM did a great job with picking up on precip struggling to make it to the 85 corridor in upstate SC and the southern NC Piedmont. Also the extended HRRR picked this up.
 
snowlover91 said:
Overall if I were in upstate SC or western NC I would be excited about the prospect of seeing snow falling but also very reserved in my expectations. There are a few things I don't particularly like about this setup that could really limit things.

1. The qpf that makes it this far west appears to be light and brief with a sharp cutoff in the .5" to .1" amounts. This leaves VERY little margin for error and if the precip isn't quite as heavy or struggles to make it this far NW there might not even be any snow or just brief flurries.

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2. Surface temps will be in the 34-37 range (and upper 30s to low 40s a few hours later for areas in western nc) for most areas that have a chance to see snow. With fairly warm ground temps and the bulk of the precip moving through after 8am the sun will also be in play here and limit accumulations.
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3. The bulk of the RGEM members keep the precip confined to areas further east and the few that do get it into upstate SC and Western NC have a VERY BRIEF period of rain/snow mix. The RGEM itself is usually a bit colder than other models and it's only showing an inch max using the Kuchera method.
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The only really bullish models at this point are the Euro and 12km/32km NAM versions. The models that I trust most to resolve the temp issues and other things all point to a dusting to an inch max for those areas that do see snow. I think at this point if I were living in Western NC or SC I'd be ecstatic about the chance to see some flakes flying but I wouldn't be expecting much if anything to actually accumulate. Hopefully this one will over-perform but these are the red flags I see at this stage that could indicate disappointment with this one.
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Caught a lot of flack for this 24 hours ago but it seems the red flags panned out and the bulk of the precip is staying SE of the 85 corridor.
 
snowlover91 said:
Looks like the 3km NAM did a great job with picking up on precip struggling to make it to the 85 corridor in upstate SC and the southern NC Piedmont. Also the extended HRRR picked this up.
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Didn't help when in the late afternoon & evening our dews were several to as much as 10F below where they were forecast to be. Earlier runs of the 3km NAM pushed the precipitation further inland than where its going to end up here.
 
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