Steve signing in at 7:54 AM. There is a lot to talk about this morning. First of all, current conditions: cloudy skies with temperatures in the foothills from Marion to Lenoir and Hickory in the 31 to 33F range. Today wont actually be that bad with partly cloudy skies, increasing cloud cover toward evening, afternoon temperatures around 50F. A weak system overnight brings us a shot of rain, mixing with or changing to wet snow Saturday morning, then maybe changing back to rain before ending by late morning. Temperatures along the I-40 corridor should be in the low 30s. While I dont see a huge impact from this system, the snow may whiten the ground in places and if you are driving early Saturday, be careful especially on the county roads. Driving conditions would be trickier in the higher elevations, of course, where maybe up to an inch of snow is possible. Once this system moves east and north of us Saturday, well see some clearing and afternoon temperatures could get into the mid 50s. Mainly dry Sunday with partly sunny skies and temperatures again in the mid, maybe upper 50s. By Monday, colder air seeps into the area and afternoon temperatures could be about 10F cooler than Sunday. Again, there doesnt appear to be much of precipitation threat on Monday. After Monday, the weather picture is still somewhat of a mixed bag but the consensus among the models is that some type of winter storm is probable, perhaps beginning on Tuesday but more likely early Wednesday morning continuing into Thursday morning. Ive looked over the long range model output through Thursday and this is what I think is going to happen: Tuesday we might see a little light rain or mix of rain, sleet and/or snow. Temperatures should be around 40 Tuesday afternoon but probably falling once the precipitation starts. This system shouldnt cause us a lot of problems if it materializes at all. There is still the chance that Tuesday would be mostly dry. By later Tuesday into Wednesday a strong high pressure settles in over New England. This drives a pretty significant wedge of cold air down over central and western North Carolina all the way into Georgia. I think this will be one of the strongest cold air wedges weve seen in a while here. In the meantime low pressure develops off the southern Louisiana coast and moves northeastward toward the Carolinas. At the moment, this does not look like a fast-moving low pressure system so it may not get into the Carolinas until late Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I think it will wind up just east of us over central North Carolina and then head up the mid-Atlantic coast. Precipitation wise, I could see snow beginning Wednesday morning, continuing throughout the day, possibly mixing with freezing rain and sleet by Wednesday evening as low pressure gets closer to us. This means we could see some accumulation of snow since temperatures are likely to be in the 20s most of the day on Wednesday. Wednesday night could bring a mixture of snow, freezing rain and sleet as temperatures rise a little but stay mainly below freezing. By Thursday morning, the precipitation should begin to taper off, either as drizzle (rain) or a light mix before ending later in the day. Its too soon to say how much total precipitation well receive. Like Chris mentioned in his earlier post below, there are some pretty dire predictions circulating about, but Im not ready to join that camp yet because the models are still not clear on how much of anything were going to get. There is the potential for a significant amount of precipitation including several inches of accumulating snow and there is also the potential for a significant ice storm but we wont know with any degree of confidence until Sunday or Monday. Right now the important thing is to be alert to the potential for significant winter weather by the middle of next week and check back with us for updates as we approach the actual event.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 13:07:34 +0000
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