Thursday, January 17, 2008

11 p.m. update: This one's going down to the wire

Have you ever watched a basketball game and even though it's early in the second half, you can see that both teams are evenly matched and that the game will be decided in the final moments?

That's the feeling I'm getting from the Saturday event.

The 0z NAM stubbornly hangs on to a snowy solution for us (and many other areas -- from Northern Miss. through Alabama, especially northern Ga. where Atlanta would get hammered).
Taken literally, the NAM spits out about .7 inches of liquid - at least a 4-6 inch snow.

The 0z GFS, on the other hand, eased a little farther east and took some moisture with it. Whereas it showed a nice moderate event at 18z, now it has scaled back to .3-.4 of an inch liquid, a 1-3 inch snow.

Here's the difference between the 18z and 0z runs -- for Saturday early afternoon.

18z
0z

You can see that we're solidly in the dark green on the first map, but barely in it on the second. It's subtle shift of less than 100 miles, but that's the kind of shift that is going to be very disappointing for someone in the southeast.

Could be us, but barring a real model consensus developing, we probably won't know until the event is right on top of us.

Now, I need to correct a point I think I made earlier. The NAM actually did better with the precip on last night's event. We had almost 1 inch of liquid. The problem is, so much of it was as sleet (a real precip eater -- 1 inch of rain equals 12 inches of snow, but 1 inch of rain equals just 2 inches of sleet) and then freezing rain.

Coming later tonight, the UK, Candian and Euro, but that will be past my bedtime (esp. after last night!).

I'll update first thing in the morning.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will stick with the fact that the storm will follow the I-95 corridor which means very little in the way for snow, at least for us.

If temps are cold enough those east and south of Charlotte will see the snow. I have never understood why we pay so much attention to computer models in the winter. If its not a perfect set we do not get a good snow. The I-85 corridor is our perfect setup not I-95. I will put my predictions against any model. We get, maybe, a little wintry mix followed by a cold rain. If the system stays farther south or east then we get nothing.

Skip Foster said...

Actually, this is a very different system than the ones you are used to tracking. The I95 corridor big cities are alreay out of the game. This system is tracking in an east northeastlerly manner -- anywhere north of Virginia is unlikely to see anything.

And there is no way any snow we get will change to rain -- it's either all snow or nothing.

The last possibility you mention -- missing us south and east -- is the only plausible scenario in your post.

Anonymous said...

The only scenario to expect when it comes to snow in our area is to expect what isn't predicted.

My scenario still stands at nothing or a cold rain. I foresee temps only being cold enough in the beginning for snow and then the warm air from the low wraps in and changes it to rain. Once the low has passed then we get the cold air needed to sustain all snow. I hope I'm wrong as I would like to see at least 8" of snow.

Regardless of what happens, its all in fun.