SNOW STORM On the Way Carolinas & Virginia. Real Story Today is NOT How Many Inches BUT the Near ZERO Degree Wind Chills Sunday AM.

 

You know how I always say:

"NWS always opens with a low bid"

Not this time....

....according to this I could get 10 inches.

Could is the operative word here 2 days out.

This time this IS a "low opening bid" on inches as some models are crazy high and others much more realistic with what happens when a Winter Storm Warning in the RDU area busts. But a bust can go either way as those who were here in 2000 and had over 20 inches after a forecast of your typical nice dusting busted high. That was 26 years ago and we are better at nailing down the multiple factors that make nailing down a forecast for snow in the Raleigh area of NC. And, when I say "Raleigh area" know the extension of "that area" known as Central North Carolina borders Virginia on the North and South Carolina on our South as seen in the graphic below. 

Yes Mitch does wake up early.

Tries to get this out early for people to read ...

...with their coffee!

This set up is about cold air diving down into our region squeezed between tight isobars that could make the winds stronger and the wind chill Sunday AM an even ZERO degrees. This is from the NWS in Raleigh and based on their forecast discussion not some kid on Tic Toc screaming at you or someone designing a cute AI map and adding in ZERO to get your attention.

So let's focus on the abnormally dangerous Wind Chills more and less on the exact expected inches of snow as no one knows even if they think they have a finely tuned crystal ball it's a prediction not a forecast. 

In NC we have had dry cold air for days. We have had very little rain this Winter and little rain this Fall. Virga falls gracefully from the sky and though we know it's there, we can't see it as it evaporates on it's way down through the dry layers up in the atmosphere. When you get an extremely WET moist system that sucked in moisture from the Gulf (as we saw recently) it amps up the moisture across the once parched atmosphere, however that is not really this particular type of system.

Snow Holes ... Dry Slots....are transitory features that set up in real time somewhere in the coverage area and while your sister who lives to neighborhood over is getting buried in snow higher than she has ever seen it's possible you are wondering what happened to the snow. They move around, set up in real time, sometimes anchor themselves over an area like North Hills in Raleigh but up the road closer to Strickland where Goodberry's Ice Cream is located they have barely anything falling from the sky. Their flavor today is "Pistachio" I checked in case any of you feel the need for Ice Cream before the storm.

When we had the Clipper a few weeks back and we were all expecting snow, a friend near Crabtree asked me if I got any, as she didn't really. I told her it snowed for about an hour, very pretty. That's Raleigh. Durham gets more consistent snow they have a bit higher elevation and latitude, tho nearby it snows there and misses Raleigh. Zebulon out in the country gets heavy snow. The heat island of Raleigh and sometimes RDU from all that exhaust makes for higher temperatures in the summer and dry slots in the winter. There's some logic, but they are very hard to predict so don't blame the weather people.

And that is this area in North Carolina. Hard to know for sure what you will see in your yard and on your rooftop. But, what we do know is it could be six inches and it could be ten and IF you are in a "dry slot" you may get 3 or 4 inches.  Some models flirt with the inches up in the teens I am not going there this morning. I am not being difficult nor refusing to give my opinion. This is my opinion based on living here now for over 16 years and finally having understood why it is so difficult to nail down a forecast this far out.

So your bottom line here is to do what you gotta do.

Make a list. 

Check last week's list for the last snow/sleet/ice storm.

This will be SNOW so that we know.

         (maybe a little sleet or freezing rain somewhere for a hot minute in this wide area)

Stock up on basics. 

Make sure you have your medications filled.

Water, drinks, snacks, canned food and a good hand operated can opener. Peanut Butter ....

Flashlights, batteries, candles (used very safely)

First Aid kit obviously.

Take out your warmest blankets (in my case I didn't put them away, under the covers as I type here)

This is not a drill (as Dabuh says) and know that my husband walked into the house just now and said "it feels way colder than 25 degrees out there!!" and he was raised in upstate NY where he took his skis with him to school to go skiing after school and usually says "nippy out there" he is not a Miami boy. 

But there are many Miami boys and girls who have moved up here the last few years, driving around with their Gator license plates on their cars parked at Publix and I'm guessing Publix will fill out really soon. They have not seen a REAL Raleigh Snow Storm. Many of those newbie Gators are clueless that  it really, really snows in a cold Carolina Winter and so this really is a cold NORTH Carolina Winter. That goes for those from NY, NJ and Maine who moved here to get "away from the snow" they will soon find out it really does snow in the Carolinas.

For every extra inch of snow on the ground you can extrapolate the time it will take for us to get back to "normal" especially with the cold wind chills after the storm and cold temperatures in general with it only warming up above zero for a hot minute or two in the late afternoon, before diving back down as the sun begins to set!

More later as forecasts and models begin to align with a realistic forecast.

Again don't obsess on inches. Raleigh has crashed to a total halt from one inch on an icy road and made headlines nation wide. I've heard what it does when they got 20 inches and I was here for close to ten when I first moved here and thought that was normal. Learned the next few snowless years it was not normal, so at least I know. School was closed all week that first wild snow storm of about 8 to 10 inches.

It's not about size today.

It's about how cold it will be after the storm once the Polar Express zooms into town.

We could have power outages for multiple reasons so keep that in mind even though it's not as scary a forecast as the ICE STORM that turned into a sleet storm and most of us kept our power on.

More to come...

I did not listen but will soon. It's a good video as I know Mitch and have seen what he's posted on X. 

I will talk on the rest of the area later today, maybe tonight. This will move up the coast and the jury is still out how close it comes to a major mess or an offshore mess. For now this region of the country is in the bulls eye for what would be an epic, possibly historic Snow Storm for some part of this area.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on X @Bobbistorm