• Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!

Wintry January 29th-30th ARCC Slam Dunk Winter Weather Threat

A dusting on the cars here 6 miles east of Birmingham. Looks like it’s about over.

I’m never looking at the GFS again ?

Good luck everyone else!
 
That precip has really dried up and just poofed over Jeff Co. I wonder if those of us over in East Al to the east will even see a flake. Nothing here yet.
 
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
 
deltadog03 said:
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
Click to expand...

Models are essentially tools to be used in forecasting, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each is a big part of forecasting. Globals are useful for getting in range of a threat but once inside 48 hours it’s tough to beat the 3km NAM combo. Most of the 3km NAM runs were showing a dusting at best and no snow for many areas, it had a few bad runs yesterday afternoon and overnight which it sometimes had right before an event starts but overall it did very well. The RGEM did great too and was more consistent even up until go time. The NWS here in Raleigh has been burned a few times in recent years by following the global output instead of the 3km NAM sand RGEM. I’ve found personally that these two models, especially a blend when they differ somewhat, is the absolute best way to go inside 48 hours. I do wish for the folks in AL, MS and other areas that the higher snow totals of the globals were right but these cold chasing the moisture setups are something they struggle to get right.
 
deltadog03 said:
Im happy for the ones that got snow. Honestly was a pretty difficult forecast, and in fact the models truly sucked. Ya, we can talk about RGEM and NAM and GFS, but lets face it....RGEM did the best of the short term models. NAM was terrible as always. I know the euro is a medium range model *its wheelhouse* but it is a higher res global and even better than the 12km NAM. It busted. So, yes, you have to trust models to a certain degree. You have too! On to the next potential system..
Click to expand...
A huge shoutout to everyone who spent the long hours, late nights, tracking this system. Thank you!
 
Total precip at CHA for the entire event was only 0.04". Had light snow for about 30 min. No accumulation. Still above freezing as well at this hour with 35. The fail here was due to multiple factors...1) precip ending earlier than progged, 2) precip much lighter than progged, along with 3) cold air moving in slower than progged, and 4) cold not as cold as progged when it finally arrived.
 
de31e111e374f6c11a39fef649d3b1b2.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If we moved banter from this thread there'd be nothing left to read..... however, with that said please bash mets or whine, complain, gripe whatever you want to do in the wambulance thread, that's what it's there for. Who knows maybe a handful of people still have a shot at some token flakes today and would actually like to discuss that and maybe not, either way, appropriate threads, please!
 
Last edited:
NWS still says rain/snow 80%, which seems high. I have a two hour window for some token flakes about 5-7pm
 
For areas in NC it's interesting what the high res models are showing... what appears to be a line of strong convection on the leading edge of the cold front. It'll be interesting to see what type of precipitation falls in this line if it indeed develops.
1548770052526.png

Soundings seem to support the back part of this line falling as heavy snow, maybe thunder snow if it is convective in nature.
1548770132267.png
 
snowlover91 said:
For areas in NC it's interesting what the high res models are showing... what appears to be a line of strong convection on the leading edge of the cold front. It'll be interesting to see what type of precipitation falls in this line if it indeed develops.
View attachment 14236

Soundings seem to support the back part of this line falling as heavy snow, maybe thunder snow if it is convective in nature.
View attachment 14237
Click to expand...

Now that would be amazing, even if we didn't really get anything to accumulate. I had already written off seeing any snow here from this one.
 
Brick Tamland said:
Now that would be amazing, even if we didn't really get anything to accumulate. I had already written off seeing any snow here from this one.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't count on any snow from this. The 12z 3km NAM is coming in much warmer at the surface and doesn't have as much of a convective look to it. I would expect rain as the RGEM seems to be verifying the best with this event.
 
Blue_Ridge_Escarpment said:
Climo usually wins out. Hard to get accumulating snow in MS, AL, and Most of GA outside of northern part.
Click to expand...
That's what I say. The general public has no idea what a "clipper system" is, but with these, until there's snow on the ground, there's no need to cancel anything. In the deep south, it's just really hard to get meaningful snow from one of them, even if the models say so. For the past 2 days, the models slowly backed off and when it came radar watching time, it just wasn't there. No surprise. Heck, even here in NW Tennessee where we get some snow periodically, the forecast snow amount crept backward for the last few days, until all mention was taken out of the forecast yesterxay afternoon. That said, it sure is cold here this morning! But yes, climatology usually wins. When in doubt, lean towards it.
 
cyclogent said:
Total precip at CHA for the entire event was only 0.04". Had light snow for about 30 min. No accumulation. Still above freezing as well at this hour with 35. The fail here was due to multiple factors...1) precip ending earlier than progged, 2) precip much lighter than progged, along with 3) cold air moving in slower than progged, and 4) cold not as cold as progged when it finally arrived.
Click to expand...
My house recorded .09 rain and I actually mustered a dusting by some miracle at my house west of Soddy Daisy. I’ll consider it a win given I saw no other areas driving around that had anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top