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Pattern The Great December Dump

Love a good sleet storm but could care less about freezing rain. But Raleigh hasn’t had a major freezing rain storm since 2002.
I could care less about it also, and it would obviously be my last choice, but I’d chose that over a 34° rain for 12 hours. It’s been since 2004 for us, we had a sleet storm in 2014 and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
 
Love a good sleet storm but could care less about freezing rain. But Raleigh hasn’t had a major freezing rain storm since 2002.
I was in that ice storm and it was bad. Being a weather weenie it was fun while it was happening, but it quickly started to suck not having any power --> all the way up to a week before Christmas. Not sure if I would want to see something like that again. So bring on the sleet.
 
The separation is the biggest question. If it were to separate, then the quicker the separation the further south and more folks will be involved with a storm. If it turns out like the GFS which had a little tick in the wrong direction, has a phase about 6 hrs later. Still a good amount of time for error with the shortwave.
 
True, but there will be enough qpf that even if there is only frozen precip for a few hours we could reach warning levels.

This is the total precip fallen by 18z Friday. Most of the precip from around I-85 south is from the potential winter storm.

View attachment 27417
Maybe especially in areas towards the heart of the wedge but we are losing the push of cold dry air and as you get out this way this is a recipe for 33 and rain after a brief period of sleet/zr.
81c1dd900925196d1472777f88a55b23.gif


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I was in that ice storm and it was bad. Being a weather weenie it was fun while it was happening, but it quickly started to suck not having any power --> all the way up to a week before Christmas. Not sure if I would want to see something like that again. So bring on the sleet.
Sleet is fun, just takes an eternity to amount to anything.
 
Sleet is fun, just takes an eternity to amount to anything.

ATL got a very impressive 4” of sleet in both 1979 and 1988. Also, that 4” was the liquid equivalent of 9-12” of snow. The sleet cover was even more durable than 9-12” of snow. Those two were two of the most impactful winter storms of the last few decades.

Before the 1979 storm, I had no clue sleet could even accumulate like that.
 
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I want to apologize for getting ahead of myself; I need to stop jumping ahead to conclusions. I know that getting ahead of these models is a foolish thing to do, but I like to make predictions from analyzing these models. Still, my prediction for the area of ice is looking like it's going to be right, it wasn't that far off. CAD area's in SC and GA will still need to watch for the possibility of ZR/IP. There are some differences between the Euro and the GFS. There is some timing differences, on the 12z Euro, the low stays well south in the Gulf of Mexico, and the low meanders around and doesn't do much of anything. I'm going with the GFS for the ice cause it has been consistent today showing the ice. Since the time frame is within 5 days, it has a good chance at verifying. I'm also considering using a blend of the Euro for the placement of high pressure. The location of the high pressure is in a much more favorable position for a much greater area of ice for CAD locations. Also on the Euro, it appears that there would be a double barrel high. So, if the Euro had the moisture further inland, I have no doubt that there will be a greater extent of ZR/IP down into SC and northeast GA (and possibly further south.)

EURO
EuroMSLP.png

GFS
gfsMSLP.png

I'm still curious as to what will happen with the 2nd wave down in the Gulf of Mexico? Will that be the snow storm? It's too far out to know for sure, I don't want to get ahead of myself. The 500mb pattern is diffrent on every model, so who really knows what's going to happen with that ULL.


EURO (this is not the first wave, this is the 2nd wave)
Euro500mbHeights.png
If the CMC is to be correct, I'm liking this look. Will a phase occur?

CMC500mb.png
I think we are going to see a lot more interesting developments in the days to come!
 
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ATL got a very impressive 4” of sleet in both 1979 and 1988. Also, that 4” was the liquid equivalent of 9-12” of snow. The sleet cover was even more durable than 9-12” of snow. Those two were two of the most impactful winter storms of the last few decades.

Before the 1979 storm, I had no clue sleet could even accumulate like that.
2014 Feb, Columbia sat in the transition zone of that Massive CAD storm and ended up with 8+ hours of sleet which added up to around 2-3 inches. Like you said, you don’t see that much. So it was impressive for sure.
 
I want to apologize for getting ahead of myself; I need to stop jumping ahead to conclusions. I know that getting ahead of these models is a foolish thing to do, but I like to make predictions from analyzing these models. Still, my prediction for the area of ice is looking like it's going to be right, it wasn't that far off. CAD area's in SC and GA will still need to watch for the possibility of ZR/IP. There are some differences between the Euro and the GFS. There is some timing differences, on the 12z Euro, the low stays well south in the Gulf of Mexico, and the low meanders around and doesn't do much of anything. I'm going with the GFS for the ice cause it has been consistent today showing the ice. Since the time frame is within 5 days, it has a good chance at verifying. I'm also considering using a blend of the Euro for the placement of high pressure. The location of the high pressure is in a much more favorable position for a much greater area of ice for CAD locations. Also on the Euro, it appears that there would be a double barrel high. So, if the Euro had the moisture further inland, I have no doubt that there will be a greater extent of ZR/IP down into SC and northeast GA (and possibly further south.)

EURO
View attachment 27421

GFS
View attachment 27422

I'm still curious as to what will happen with the 2nd wave down in the Gulf of Mexico? Will that be the snow storm? It's too far out to know for sure, I don't want to get ahead of myself. The 500mb pattern is diffrent on every model, so who really knows what's going to happen with that ULL.


EURO (this is not the first wave, this is the 2nd wave)
View attachment 27423
If the CMC is to be correct, I'm liking this look. Will a phase occur?

View attachment 27424
I think we are going to see a lot more interesting developments in the days to come!

No need to apologize. This is a quality, reasonable post and well put-together. No hyperbole or certainty necessary and none given. Thanks for your thoughts and effort. Truth is most of us have been burned by our own confidence on these weather boards.
 
Does anyone know when or if they are putting samples data into the models about this yet I think I saw web say something about it earlier
 
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So, this may be banner, feel free to move it. But I see people say things like this a lot. So you’re telling me, sincerely, that you rather take rain in the mid 30s than ice? It’s been nearly 6 years since Columbia has seen anything even somewhat close to significant (significant being like a inch of snow or 0.25 of ice). I see this from Mets on tv also, and it’s just hard to believe. I just feel like as passion as most of us are with weather, deep down, even when it can be dangerous, we really want what others probably wouldn’t want. Example being a crippling ice storm or a hurricane. Look, I don’t want the damage or potential risk to the safety of others at all. I get it, I own a house, have trees around my house and everything. But I just feel like that’s an age old act that Mets or weather enthusiast do, act like they wouldn’t want something but deep down, you do. The passion in us wants it, even though there may be consequences. So, that being said, bring on a ice storm if that’s our only option Winter weather wise.

Thankfully, we are our own individual people and if you want an ice storm and no power for a week+ you can have it. I personally would not want that as a weather enthusiast or even as a pro met.
 
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Webber, that's a decent hp over the lakes at 1041mb. I'm suprised the euro isn't showing hardly any winter weather with that 1041mb. I guess i was told the wrong information about when the IOD is positive like it is, that it allows the mjo to focus in the colder more niño phases of 8-2, which hasn't happened yet. I think ive mentioned about the nao/ao being positive, which isnt good imo. The AAM has been negative, which is a disconnect between the ocean and the atmosphere. I'm cautiously optimistic that will turn positive and perhaps that would help some because i dont think we want a trough out west this winter.
 
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