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Wintry January 23rd-27th 2026

Webberweather53 said:
The thing that still concerns me the most with this ice storm in the Carolinas is the squall line of heavy freezing rain showers and elevated supercells that comes at the tail end of this storm late Sunday evening into Sunday night.

Gusty winds from these could lead to widespread downed trees and power lines in areas that have significant ice accumulation left on the trees and power lines. This is more likely to be the case over the Piedmont in places like Raleigh & Charlotte down to Greenville-Spartanburg and even near the Triad. If your power goes out during this ice storm, the arrival of these gusty showers and embedded supercells is most likely when it will happen

Basically every high resolution CAM shows this scenario playing out, including the RRFS, NAM, HRRR, FV3, and ARW

View attachment 188586
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Hopefully, we keep the surface entirely decoupled from the super nasty flow aloft, because even a 20 ish mph gust could be bad if you have enough ice on trees and power lines
 
Looking at the precip rate vs. accrual efficiency discussion. I saw this paper linked to earlier: Analysis of Ice-to-Liquid Ratios during Freezing Rain and the Development of an Ice Accumulation Model. I'm looking at Fig. 10:

BoxWhisker.png

Eyeballing this and doing some Excel math, it looks like while ice accrual is more efficient at lower precipitation rates, it's not efficient enough to accrue more than higher precipitation rates. Someone can double check me if I'm just interpreting this completely wrong.

RatevsAccrual.png
 
Webberweather53 said:
You actually could see a variety of precipitation types in the heaviest showers. Anything from all rain, to freezing rain, sleet, graupel, or even hail 😂
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I am very curious what that final line is like, assuming we are still below freezing. Never really seen anything like that. I didn't really believe it all these days, but it seems pretty clear it's going to happen at this point.
 
DopplerWx said:
Still sleet at 9am, hoping it verifies but glad to have 3k nam on our side here.
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Yep it sure is! I could see you guys just barely escaping with more sleet, but it’s so tough. We probably see things flip as the first wave of precip lifts out and we transition to more of a freezing drizzle/light ZR type regime.
 
DustinWx said:
Where do I need to be to avoid the sleet?
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You actually may want to be up along the blue ridge escarpment near the NC-SC border.

Here, you have the best combination of increased precipitation potential from orographic lift over the foothills and mountains while also being higher in elevation. This higher elevation actually shrinks the depth of your cold nose aloft. Thus, any rain that falls from the warm nose down into the cold nose below has less time to refreeze before it hits the ground.
 
Webberweather53 said:
You actually may want to be up along the blue ridge escarpment near the NC-SC border.

Here, you have the best combination of increased precipitation potential from orographic lift over the foothills and mountains while also being higher in elevation. This higher elevation actually shrinks the depth of your cold nose aloft. Thus, any rain that falls from the warm nose down into the cold nose below has less time to refreeze before it hits the ground.
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Yeah. Was planning on heading to Clayton ga this evening. But yeah between mountain rest Bernard Clayton and highlands looks like a good bet
 
Webberweather53 said:
You actually may want to be up along the blue ridge escarpment near the NC-SC border.

Here, you have the best combination of increased precipitation potential from orographic lift over the foothills and mountains while also being higher in elevation. This higher elevation actually shrinks the depth of your cold nose aloft. Thus, any rain that falls from the warm nose down into the cold nose below has less time to refreeze before it hits the ground.
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Regarding the elevation, does that actually benefit somewhere like the Triangle (~300 ft. elevation) against somewhere like the Triad (900 ft. elevation at the airport IIRC), insofar as getting sleet versus freezing rain? Of course, the Triad will also likely be a tick or two colder so that might outweigh another few hundred feet of altitude?
 
1769389200-IxtOuBDcCzY.png
This would be best case scenario from the 3k nam.
 
superjames1992 said:
Regarding the elevation, does that actually benefit somewhere like the Triangle (~300 ft. elevation) against somewhere like the Triad (900 ft. elevation at the airport IIRC), insofar as getting sleet versus freezing rain? Of course, the Triad will also likely be a tick or two colder so that might outweigh another few hundred feet of altitude?
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Unfortunately, it doesn’t here because the cold air dam itself is shallower over the triangle than it is over the Triad and the air mass is a tad warmer in Raleigh than Greensboro. The cold air dam gets deeper the further north and west you go, until of course you hit the mountains.
 
bouncycorn said:
HRRR initialized too warm in Carolina’s/CAD region

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This shows the building CAD in action in SC/GA. The deepest blues in the CAD region is the deepest/densest of the cold air push in the wedge. It is making its way down the channel, pushing the warm air further into the CAD where you can see the brightest reds (mid N GA and south of Augusta) as this warm air is pushed to the edge of the CAD boundary and scoured out. It looks like a Tstorm outflow headed towards SAV.
 
packfan98 said:
1769389200-IxtOuBDcCzY.png
This would be best case scenario from the 3k nam.
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Man, RDU doesn't even crack 0.50" liquid equivalent including even the final band rolling through. If this verifies, then 1. That would be very good for our power system and our trees, 2. The general public is going to fail to believe any more hyped storms in the future.

I don't really believe it, though. Seems too extreme.
 
superjames1992 said:
Man, RDU doesn't even crack 0.50" liquid equivalent including even the final band rolling through. If this verifies, then 1. That would be very good for our power system and our trees, 2. The general public is going to fail to believe any more hyped storms in the future.

I don't really believe it, though. Seems too extreme.
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Not if convection robs moisture
 
Mahomeless said:
Temps soaring in northeast AL….feels amazing outside. This warm nose is no joke…should be a good match for southern CAD areas like ATL.
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Where are you at specifically? I just changed my wiper blades in the parking lot at work, car showed 31 when I cranked it, all the icicles on cars were not dripping. Huntsville/Madison area.
 
DustinWx said:
I thought the high res models were trending with more
Moisture?
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They go back and forth. The nam tends to underestimate precip. You can usually tell when the simulated radar looks really splotchy. I’m 80% sure that’s what’s happening here since it’s one of the driest models for the I-85 corridor.
 
packfan98 said:
They go back and forth. The nam tends to underestimate precip. You can usually tell when the simulated radar looks really splotchy. I’m 80% sure that’s what’s happening here since it’s one of the driest models for the I-85 corridor.
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My thought was always HRRR is great for where precip sets up, NAM is useful for type of precip set up, but neither seem to be stellar at how much precip happens!
 
you’re going to want to differ to globals on precip and hi res on thermals 9/10x. A lot of these hi res are showing dry hours totaling 6-8 hours. You’re going to be getting heavy drizzle or light rain. On top of that they also tend to dry out further in their ranges. It’s why you keep seeing the HRRR and 3K improve further west each run precip wise.
 
iGRXY said:
you’re going to want to differ to globals on precip and hi res on thermals 9/10x. A lot of these hi res are showing dry hours totaling 6-8 hours. You’re going to be getting heavy drizzle or light rain. On top of that they also tend to dry out further in their ranges. It’s why you keep seeing the HRRR and 3K improve further west each run precip wise.
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For sure, but encouraging to see sleet hang on for longer vs the Graf and the in house models mets have shown with changeover for clt/upstate at midnight
 
Webberweather53 said:
Yep it sure is! I could see you guys just barely escaping with more sleet, but it’s so tough. We probably see things flip as the first wave of precip lifts out and we transition to more of a freezing drizzle/light ZR type regime.
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iGRXY said:
you’re going to want to differ to globals on precip and hi res on thermals 9/10x. A lot of these hi res are showing dry hours totaling 6-8 hours. You’re going to be getting heavy drizzle or light rain. On top of that they also tend to dry out further in their ranges. It’s why you keep seeing the HRRR and 3K improve further west each run precip wise.
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Would that heavy/light drizzle periods be bad for accumulations? It accrues much more efficiently at light rates, correct?
 
Just wanted to "note/pass on" a couple of points ...
1) Many may have moved/changed home in last 10-12 years since last "Ice Storm" event and now have Heat Pumps rather than "traditional heat. CHECK YOUR Instructions as to use of Auxiliary/Emergency heat setting in keep the outside unit from freezing up from ZR/Sleet accumulation.
2) Be aware that many areas in the Metro Atlanta and East of Atlanta Metro had 2 or 3 "squall line" events this past spring/early summer and it downed/ damaged a good number of pines. These may be weakened and could be more likely to "fail" with the icing load and winds expected Sunday .
 
iGRXY said:
1769346000-5znzFGhZvrE.png
you’re going to want to differ to globals on precip and hi res on thermals 9/10x. A lot of these hi res are showing dry hours totaling 6-8 hours. You’re going to be getting heavy drizzle or light rain. On top of that they also tend to dry out further in their ranges. It’s why you keep seeing the HRRR and 3K improve further west each run precip wise.
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Yeah, I do believe your sentiments have merit. For example, the new 19z hrrr has much more precip and freezing rain for Georgia this run. I was hoping to keep the precip under and inch here, but it may be a losing battle.
 
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