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Wintry Jan 27-28 Snow Potential Official Thread

metwannabe said:
Being on the northern side means rates aren't as intense but that's a beautiful sounding, not even close to a warm nose

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TBH soundings look pretty similar in the Wake county area too. Temps aloft may not really be our problem, except indirectly in how they imply a shallower above-freezing layer at the surface, so changeover will be rate-driven. Here's Raleigh just before and a bit after the changeover:
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Not much of a warm nose really, in fact it looks like there's column-deep CAA, which means more of a barrier for getting lift. I wonder how much that factors into the NAM's drier forecasts. The 12z HRRR looks similar though:
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RVD said:
TBH soundings look pretty similar in the Wake county area too. Temps aloft may not really be our problem, except indirectly in how they imply a shallower above-freezing layer at the surface, so changeover will be rate-driven. Here's Raleigh just before and a bit after the changeover:
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Not much of a warm nose really, in fact it looks like there's column-deep CAA, which means more of a barrier for getting lift. I wonder how much that factors into the NAM's drier forecasts. The 12z HRRR looks similar though:
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That’s a nice sounding. You think we could get better than normal ratios with that, too, or will it be limited by the near-freezing BL temps?
 
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superjames1992 said:
That’s a nice sounding. You think we could get better than normal ratios with that, too, or will it be limited by the near-freezing BL temps?
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Yeah that's a good question. I'm not sure exactly about the details of what determines snow:liquid ratios, but I'd think having a colder profile like that means better ratios, though surface temps above freezing will quickly eat into that. I think all of that should be reflected in the Kuchera Ratios, which are not spectacular. This reminds me of the surface temp problems we had with that Feb storm last year, though I think it is to our advantage that this is occurring entirely overnight.
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Here are the current projections combined from the different NWS stations. RAH substantially increased the BOOM potential map.
StormTotalSnowWeb_NC.png

SnowAmt90Prcntl_NC.png
 
Here’s what I’m going with, I’m not really sure if I should have maybe expanded this further south given the column crash but here we go, may update this later it depends (above the dashed line is a dusting to 1 inch)
(Btw @Webberweather53 i used the pixlr app (the one I use for lightning stacking) and man it’s great for making maps, thanks for the idea !) BAA4EB3F-9EC8-48A2-A6A5-669B49DF40E5.jpeg
 
This is workable NAM finally getting on the storm train.....now just need for some real banding to set up and the storm to trend slower or stronger......seems like all we have managed the last several years are these fast 3-5 hr snow events.....if this thing would just hang out for another 4- 6 hrs this would be a big win for most of NC....

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Ollie Williams said:
I have a feeling this is overdone, but I would love to be under this 50dbz band! Certainly would aid in accumulation!
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RDU gets it later in the night.
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A lot of that of course is gonna be melting layer bright band but still next to the rain-snow line, you'll have weakening warm advection coupled w/ strengthening low-level cold advection + latent heating effects aiding in a laterally propagating band of frontogenesis near the rain-snow line. My personal favorite precip type is when you're getting very wet snow/ pillows falling out of the sky and you're barely inside the rain-snow line. Accumulation efficiency is obviously not as great but it's awesome to look at.
 
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