Major Winter Storm Taking Aim At The South Friday and Saturday

The latest trends in the models is colder and wetter among all the models, esp. the most reliable one, the European. Its unusually cold aloft for our area and into northern Georgia.Without getting into the technical aspects, I'll just get to the point. Remember January 1988? Its a very similar setup , and hard to believe it's been that long since an area from Oklahoma to NC has seen a wide swath of potentially heavy snow. The setup is similar, with a closed ridge in western Canada that began showing up last week, and an active southern branch to the jetstream. A low will ride into southern California in this "split-flow" tonight and begin to get its act together around the 4 Corners region into Western Texas. Meanwhile, the big ticket item,and the key ingredient that is usually not with us, the cold Polar Vortex. All the models have now slung it into the Great Lakes, a prime spot when theres a low in Texas, and a truly rare event for much of the South. The low in western Texas will focus moisture along an inverted trough in Oklahoma down to the Gulf, really raking eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas and eastern Texas with heavy precip. For the areas in Ok, and Ark., this looks like a very dangerous snow and ice storm, with unbelievable amounts being printed out on all the models.

This moisture begins to rocket east bound, reaching Asheville by daybreak and Shelby and Charlotte by shortly after daybreak on Friday, in the form of snow. The snow grows heavier during the day as cold high pressure begins to really dam into the region, dropping our temperatures into the upper 20s through the day, possibly lower since most models dont' handle Cold Air damming scenarios well, and this looks to be a classic case of C.A.D. Temperatures should continue nose-diving across the highway 74 corridor through darkness Friday night but at the same time, the upper low will be approaching and may change the southern sections over to sleet as warmer air aloft is getting close to our area. Its too far out to say for sure. But generally, much of NC is snow, with perhaps the southern counties mixing with or changing to sleet for a period of time overnight Friday night, before going back over to snow Saturday morning. Then it ends and turns bitter cold.
Lows this weekend with snowpack on the ground and the arrival of a fresh arctic high should go down to near 10 in Shelby, possibly single digits for Asheville and Hickory. Quite an event is on the horizon.

Its still 3 days out and could change some but for now, the ingredients seem to be coming together for a major winter storm, even all the way down to Atlanta with a very dangerous ice storm in much of northern Georgia.  Lets hope that doesn't work its way our way. Usually though, with a low taking the track across northern Florida, Shelby has remained mostly snow and sleet.

I'll update again Wednesday.

** snow totals will be "up there" for whomever gets all snow. First guess is Asheville to Hickory is pure snow with quite a few inches. Shelby to Charlotte has the potential to cash in at this point but I'd not be so sure on totals until the storm gets within 24 to 48 hours.