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Jan. 17-18, 2026 SE Winter Weather Threat

rburrel2 said:
One annoying thing for the upstate. We have a thermal profile conducive for snow, even on Saturday night, but we would need 1/10th of liquid or so to adequately cool the boundary layer I think. I think we probably start out as light rain and quickly flip to snow, but we’ll have to slog down from 40 to 32 at the surface.

As such, if we only get .10-.15 and it comes late Saturday night, our odds of accumulations aren’t good.

We will need heavy rates quickly Saturday night that adds up to .2-.3 liquid, or additional light precip Sunday morning to have any chance of sticking snow. Models are split on whether or not we get Sunday morning-ish precip. A lot of these bumps in qpf are coming from that initial band that develops Saturday night.(which will be iffy with the boundary layer)
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Ive been worried about that too but now im in the 0.25 range in general . Gfs even showing amounts above 0.30 just south of atlanta. The question is will this trend continue, stop, or back off. If we get another couple of ticks till showtime even areas up to 85 will be doing surprisingly well compared to where we looked a day ago thats for sure.

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I like what I am seeing on the 12Z RAP for places further north as there has been another small tick northward with the early finger band of precip which produces heavier returns and overlaps the cold air earlier similar to the 12Z HRRR allowing dynamic cooling to take over the change precip over to wet snow. This would even put some folks north of I-85 in the game for falling flakes, even the mountains as there appears that moisture will be moving that far northward. However, unless this narrow band of heavier moisture significantly expands and overperforms during the event this evening, I don't see this being able to accumulate too well other than a mix or some nice flakes for a bit. The main question for GA folks along I-85 in terms of accumulations is can we get the second wave of precip during the morning to overperform and expand on the northern side when we have favorable temperatures in place.
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tractor girl said:
Athens GA is gonna be riding a fine line unless Teal 72 bumps the cold down and precip up a bit.

Whatever falls will likely melt relatively quick unless someone happens to get pasted
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The surface warm layer is very shallow..it won't take long to over come it. Per nam and gfs At 06z wetbulb zero heights are at 950mb and by 09z its just a couple hundred feet off the surface. I've seen worse.
 
Nomanslandva said:
Looks like BL temp problems here for whatever light stuff we get per HRRR. Wild how Central/SE GA looks to get blasted but NE NC and SE VA all rain. We'll see how that pans out and if NW trends continue.

Also had a dusting of graupel this am.
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I’ll be in Blacksburg tonight so probably won’t have issues with temps there. Can’t believe how much this has backed up. Had graupel in Roanoke too this morning. I start classes back on Tuesday and I work tomorrow and Monday…
 
Webberweather53 said:
The 12z HRRR is basically all rain outside the mountains and foothills. Makes sense to me
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Brother. No hate here. But you are digging yourself a hole here if a swath of heavy snow pumps out 1-2 inches of snow outside the mountains across the Southeast. I know you are confident. and you might be right.. But there is no way in heck I would speak in such absolutes like you are.
 
Mitch West said:
Brother. No hate here. But you are digging yourself a hole here if a swath of heavy snow pumps out 1-2 inches of snow outside the mountains across the Southeast. I know you are confident. and you might be right.. But there is no way in heck I would speak in such absolutes like you are.
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My brother in Christ im talking about NC
 
HailCore said:
I like what I am seeing on the 12Z RAP for places further north as there has been another small tick northward with the early finger band of precip which produces heavier returns and overlaps the cold air earlier similar to the 12Z HRRR allowing dynamic cooling to take over the change precip over to wet snow. This would even put some folks north of I-85 in the game for falling flakes, even the mountains as there appears that moisture will be moving that far northward. However, unless this narrow band of heavier moisture significantly expands and overperforms during the event this evening, I don't see this being able to accumulate too well other than a mix or some nice flakes for a bit. The main question for GA folks along I-85 in terms of accumulations is can we get the second wave of precip during the morning to overperform and expand on the northern side when we have favorable temperatures in place.
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Perfectly stated for N. Georgia east of 85.

Everything hinges on the back edge of the second wave extending another 50-75 miles NW or so in the pre-dawn hour, and most importantly, the more favorable few hours after dawn. Even then, there remains a risk that boundary thermals don't cooperate, as so often happens with models overestimating the timing and strength of CAA coming in from the NW. Been there, done that too many times. Or, much heavier rates and duration than seems possible given current guidance.

As always, I'm secretly hoping for much more, but experience tells me that an early AM coating is a win at this point.
 
Well…waking up to even worse BL issues across the whole board was not what we were hoping for with regards to our family snow chase, but again, cold chasing moisture is never something to bank on. Really need some major shifts west with the tilt….its a nowcasting event at this point.
 
Man, I wish this was an option, but about half of that northern precip shield is virga the entire time. However, I just checked soundings down in the deep heavy snows there and there is still dry air issues, so maybe the model as a whole should not be trusted for handling overcoming a dry air layer, as there is zero chance the dry layer wouldn't be saturated with that much snow in middle/south GA 1768658962758.png
 
Wild Weather Monger said:
The NAM is trash to me now. 🤡 We roll with this FV3 bad boy.
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Watch out with this model, there are significant dry air issues going on. Half of that precip on the northern edge would never reach the ground with the soundings shown, but at the same time even central and southern GA would struggle with dry air after getting 2-3 inches of snow on the accumulation map, so maybe take the dry air factor with a grain of salt. I think if this depiction came true, there would be enough time to saturate the atmosphere, heck that would suggest a few hours of snow right over ATL which should provide a buffer allowing dry air to saturate and some time for actual snow.
 
Mahomeless said:
I’m with Webber here….its going to be hard to find a snowflake anywhere on this board except in extreme western NC
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1768659641542.pngThis is why I am still a little more optimistic to see some snow here tomorrow. The NAM is again showing increased forcing with the low pressure pulling more to the coast, increasing frontogenesis enough to give a band of wet snow. I’m not saying it will happen but also why I don’t think it is good to speak absolutes about the weather
 
HailCore said:
Watch out with this model, there are significant dry air issues going on. Half of that precip on the northern edge would never reach the ground with the soundings shown, but at the same time even central and southern GA would struggle with dry air after getting 2-3 inches of snow on the accumulation map, so maybe take the dry air factor with a grain of salt. I think if this depiction came true, there would be enough time to saturate the atmosphere, heck that would suggest a few hours of snow right over ATL which should provide a buffer allowing dry air to saturate and some time for actual snow.
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Yikes, you're not kidding. This is my sounding during the best reflectivity returns. What's crazy is the accumulation maps, WTH?
soundings-[33.83,-83.83]-hrwfv3-ref1km_ptype-us_se-2026011712-25.png
 
Mahomeless said:
I’m with Webber here….its going to be hard to find a snowflake anywhere on this board except outside of extreme western NC
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That's not what he's been saying. He's been talking about NC and sc having issues
Wild Weather Monger said:
The NAM is trash to me now. 🤡 We roll with this FV3 bad boy.
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Sounds good to me..has me between 0.30 to 0.40...lol. Interesting that both models have greatly increased totals over central ga and sc though.
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