Wintry Palm Sunday NC and VA Winter Storm

[Brick Tamland]

So, the models were off on the surface temps. Did they miss the warm nose, too?

 

[Tarheel1]

Straight outta Roxboro!

 

[Jimmy Hypocracy]

I saw several 16” snow reports up in VA this morning

 

[packfan98]

Nice! May have even had more accumulation earlier before some of it melted overnight!

Yeah, I figure it was our usual 1/2” slop event. We get 2 or 3 of those every year it seems. As I’m catching up from last night I see that NWS issued winter storm warnings? Really? For which counties? Seems weird.

 

[Webberweather53]

Yeah, I figure it was our usual 1/2” slop event. We get 2 or 3 of those every year it seems. As I’m catching up from last night I see that NWS issued winter storm warnings? Really? For which counties? Seems weird.

Peron, Orange, Alamance, Forsyth, and Guilford went under winter storm warnings, it verified within an inch or so of warning criteria in Person county (saw 3" report there so it's acceptable). I think they freaked out when they saw the frontogenetical band setting up along and to the NW of Raleigh, of course right as they put out the warning, the rain-snow line accelerated north because there was just so much lift and specifically condensation/deposition over the shallow in-situ CAD dome that the warm nose accelerated northward and flipped most of these areas back to rain for at least a time, busting their new forecast that called for up to 4". Yeah the NWS was executing a lot of knee jerk reactions to each new model run, etc. it seemed and there wasn't much consistency in their forecast.

 

[Jon]

So, the models were off on the surface temps. Did they miss the warm nose, too?

The power of positively! Lol

Not really....the warm nose was modeled well enough to give us fair warning snow would accumulate north of wake county for the majority of the storm (even though obviously many places got a trace before changeover back to rain)... countless NAM runs, Euro, Long range hrrr, hrrr, etc.

We got mostly rain. If there was a stout warm nose and underestimated CAD together, we would have had more sleet, which I thought was best case because I had trouble with an all-snow solution for RDU.

I was surprised though with how fast the changeover occurred during the storm but we were fooled into thinking it wouldn’t change back...late March is too hard here.

 

[Webberweather53]

Here's a preliminary version of the final snow/sleet accumulations across NC in this storm. Big winners were Big Frosty and the rest of the far NW piedmont and northwestern mountains as expected. Despite the oncoming and virtually inevitable warm nose aloft, we managed to turnover to all snow for a brief period of time in Raleigh, most to our south had sleet mixed w/ rain at best. However, a rain/snow mix was reported as far south as Rockingham, NC

 

[packfan98]

Here's a preliminary version of the final snow/sleet accumulations across NC in this storm. Big winners were Big Frosty and the rest of the far NW piedmont and northwestern mountains as expected. Despite the oncoming and virtually inevitable warm nose aloft, we managed to turnover to all snow for a brief period of time in Raleigh, most to our south had sleet mixed w/ rain at best. However, a rain/snow mix was reported as far south as Rockingham, NC
View attachment 4835

Do you know how much the airport in Greensboro has officially reported for the season? I would think it’s above average at this point.

 

[Webberweather53]

Do you know how much the airport in Greensboro has officially reported for the season? I would think it’s above average at this point.

PTI is actually up to about 14.5" on the season, it's actually almost double the 1981-2017 average of 7.5"! I'll have to make a map of the storm on Wednesday and I'll come up with a detailed statewide accumulation once I'm confident we're done getting snow for the season lol.
December 8-9 2017: 2.2"
January 16-18 2018: 7"
January 29-30 2018: 0.5"
March 12 2018: 3"
March 21 2018: 0.8"
March 24-25 2018: 1"

 

[GaWx]

Since 1926-7, the first year of the most reliable records at Greensboro, only 18 of 91 seasons have had more S/IP than 14.5" or only about 20%. So, a season like 2017-8 or bigger comes around only about once every 5 seasons on average. So, based purely on S/IP amounts (what most here seem to care about the most) 2017-8 at Greensboro would be a B+ or better winter.

PS: I wonder what S/IP Greensboro got since midnight. That would bring it above 14.5" if measurable. The midnight and 1AM reports had light snow.

 

[Webberweather53]

Since 1926-7, the first year of the most reliable records at Greensboro, only 18 of 91 seasons have had more S/IP than 14.5" or only about 20%. So, a season like 2017-8 or bigger comes around only about once every 5 seasons on average. So, based purely on S/IP amounts (what most here seem to care about the most) 2017-8 at Greensboro would be a B+ or better winter.

PS: I wonder what S/IP Greensboro got since midnight. That would bring it above 14.5" if measurable. The midnight and 1AM reports had light snow.

Nothing else of significance accumulated, the total remained at about 1" and several other friends and local storm reports confirmed this. The light snow wasn't going to accumulate effectively in a storm like this, unless your rates were high it wasn't going to effectively stick to the ground and pile up even after some had already accrued.