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Wintry Feb 17-19 Smastsmasher Snow/Ice

Han
EMTime said:
My local met here said he doesn't think the models are handling the shallow cold air that's already in place very well, and that he feels we will get sleet or freezing rain again for NE Ms and nw Alabama.
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models handle it good yesterday in north alabama
 
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There is where we get to the most complex and lower confidence part
of the forecast. Depending on the vertical temperature profile, it`s
possible we actually start seeing some wintry precipitation across
portions of northwest Alabama by the late afternoon on Wednesday and
north central Alabama into southern Middle Tennessee by the evening
and overnight period. We could see this start off as a light snow or
sleet and eventually mixing with or changing over to freezing rain
or rain depending on what the surface temperatures look like for a
given location. In this scenario, precipitation type is going to be
very messy and impacts will be very dependent on what surface
temperatures look like (which will range from a couple degree below
freezing to a couple degrees above freezing). Complicating things
further is that we do expect fluctuations in temperatures through the
night and into the day on Thursday as a secondary low likely tracks
across central Alabama early Thursday -- meaning a mixed bag will be
in cards for much of the area.

As far as any potential accumulations/impacts go, that`s complicated
as well. If surface temperatures are near or above freezing, ice
impacts will be lessened and snow/sleet would mostly stay confined
to grassy/elevated surfaces. If we`re colder than expected, that`s a
different ballgame. While we will continue to advertise lower end
accumulations for this package (due to low forecast confidence), it`s
important to note that that both the GFS and ECMWF ensembles are
hinting at near Advisory level accumulations across at least portions
of northwest Alabama and southern middle Tennessee. In fact, over 40
out of 50 ensembles at at MSL feature snow/sleet accumulations of 1
inch or greater. And it`s fairly similar for sites at Fayetteville
and Winchester. Again, storm total accumulations and impacts (which
are dependent on surface temperatures and other factors) are
different things and that`s important to note. We`ll keep a close eye
on this with the forecast update later today. For today`s forecast
package we nudged up snow/ice accumulations slightly (which mainly
occur in the Wednesday night to early Thursday period).
 
EV_WS said:
For realz though. dislike IMBY’s. Are we trending torwards another ugly ice storm for the immediate Triad? @Poimen, @norcarolinian @NCSNOW @packfan98. Perhaps, those that are more weather knowledgeable than I can answer. This could be a serious situation. Realize that future runs may reveal otherwise. TIA

*edited for grammar.
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It is looking like we could have some issues again unfortunately. And in a larger area. I haven’t even started cleaning up from this last one. Can only hope that it gets colder aloft or warmer at the ground.
 
BlueRidgeFolklore said:
Although more isolated, the models are spitting "screwed" level numbers along the southern, east facing escarpment as well. Not surprising, because Saluda, Zirconia, Tryon, Chimney Rock, etc, get crushed with these setups as well.
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They do but I'm not sure if those areas will be cold enough to get super big totals in this setup, it's gonna be close.
 
HRRR still seems to crush NE Texas, SW Arkansas and NW Louisiana with snow.

So very close, lol (well, I guess that's the life story of DFW, haha!)
 
12z hrrr
dba1c8e5195613d06a0a35b1e54bd55a.jpg



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---- I wish this storm would speed up into the really low dew points at this point.
 
Surprised there is not more talk from tv mets etc. bout tomorrow and thursday for north bama ,ms and tn.reckon we will get some kind of advisory today??
 
Gut....this system performs for north and central Alabama. We haven’t had cold air like this in before a system in a long time. Models hopefully miss that
 
WSNC said:
925 temps much colder this run of 12z nam. Looks like a period of sleet in triad.
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Still looks like freezing rain in the Triad to me, that warm nose is absolutely ridiculous and the 925mb level is almost at the sfc over the Triad due to elevation. The near sfc cold layer doesn't look deep or strong enough to offset that absurd near +10°C warm nose at 850mb & I doubt there would be refreezing. If the warm nose was <5°C then you might have a point here, but that's way too strong

1613488040066.png
 
SouthATLwx said:
I guess the models trended even drier than they were yesterday.

FWD is now only calling for 1 inch of less of snow, lol.
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The 6Z GFS and Euro suites are a little wetter with 0.25 (Euro) and 0.35” GFS qpf. And even though the 0.35” GFS has a good bit of sleet mixed in, even it has 2-3” accum, which would be another major event being that sleet would be in the mix, The Euro is closer to pure snow and is ~2”. So based on this, I think 1” is conservatively low and a 2-3” combo of sleet and snow is my initial guess. Regardless of the outcome, what a mess and what a week+!
 
Webberweather53 said:
Still looks like freezing rain in the Triad to me, that warm nose is absolutely ridiculous and the 925mb level is almost at the sfc over the Triad due to elevation. The near sfc cold layer doesn't look deep or strong enough to offset that absurd near +10°C warm nose at 850mb & I doubt there would be refreezing. If the warm nose was <5°C then you might have a point here, but that's way too strong

View attachment 75496
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I was thinking the same thing. This is a much stouter warm nose than last weekend. My suspicion (and hope) is that the heavy precip will scour out the wedge quickly and there will be less impact in the Triad than last weekend. It's close those, so every trend is crucial.
 
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