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Winter Weather Watch starts in Greensboro mid-day tomorrow. According to the weather guy, we can expect 2-4 inches or just cold rain, depending on which model you go by.

12/17/2009 8:59:52 AM

haha i asked my guy this morning and he says we're still on track for Fri/Sat snow.

even WRAL has it up now

http://www.wral.com/weather/story/6636465/

12/17/2009 9:02:33 AM

Looks like Virginia is the new target by the models, Raleigh appears to be sitting right on the border line for some snow or not... will have to see how things look tomorrow but starting to look like if we do get snow it will be zero to very light accumulation.

12/17/2009 9:02:57 AM

yeah, the most reliable model (according to our local weather dude) has the Triad in the "wintry mix" line, changing to snow on Saturday before moving out. If you go by that model, Raleigh won't get shit but rain.

12/17/2009 9:07:07 AM

Yep the large amount of snow area has slowly been shifting north and west of the triangle so unless the whole storm decides to shift east between now and tomorrow its looking like a lot of cold cold rain with Im sure some wintry mix in there somewhere but not the 6-12" they were thinking this time yesterday.. oh well id rather it just be rain since it will have no bearing on getting me out of work or anything.

12/17/2009 9:09:37 AM

so on the way into work this morning on 101.5, they said that most of the activity will be east of the triangle...then i look on wral's website and the warning and everything else is west of the triangle. wtf?

i'm in rocky mount. what's gonna happen here? i bet rain

12/17/2009 9:10:08 AM

damn i take back what i said...maybe now i deserve the spanking

12/17/2009 9:18:45 AM

12/17/2009 9:20:01 AM

whatever falls, will be frozen come night time.

12/17/2009 10:29:17 AM

so you're saying we should plan to take a cab sled home from the christmas party saturday night?

good thing they live in our neighborhood, lol.

12/17/2009 10:29:48 AM

Have we run the weather report through google translator yet?

Some accumulation = town will be shut down for a week
2 to 4 inches = absolutely nothing

12/17/2009 10:51:01 AM

the official email finally went out to the office

Quote :

"An area of low pressure will be moving into the Triangle from the south tomorrow. With the cold air we have in place now and the abundance of moisture from this storm system we will see the risk of measurable snow through central NC. As of now, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch from the Triangle westward. Raleigh should be right on the line between rain and snow, which makes forecasting for this system fairly complicated. To the north and west of Raleigh all snow should occur, which could result in ten inches of snow or more mainly for the foothills and along the NC/VA border. Around here we could begin to see precipitation begin by late tomorrow morning as snow. The atmosphere should warm throughout the day and the snow should then changeover to rain by tomorrow evening. We could receive around an inch of snow by tomorrow afternoon before the changeover to rain occurs. Overnight tomorrow night, expect to see snow mixing with rain early and then a transition to all snow or sleet through the remainder of the day on Saturday. I would expect us to receive 3-5’’ of snow before this system moves out Saturday night or early Sunday. Keep posted for more updates, since this forecast is still uncertain due to us being on the line from seeing a lot to nothing at all. "

12/17/2009 1:38:06 PM

supposedly a commenter on Huffman's site says the euro is trending the low out further to sea, which means more for us I would think

what's really interesting is the long-term...(i know, i know) but run the loop on snowfall potential as far out as you can go on the GFS and the NAM.

the next few weeks are going to be really interesting either way.

12/17/2009 1:44:25 PM

Any of you using BUFKIT?

I'm trying to get it to work on my pc and I'm having a little trouble. I can't get GSO or RDU to show up on the profiles list at the top. I've entered them several ways, but it still doesn't show up. I've also setup the file locations in BUFGET to download model data for gso and rdu, and that seems to work fine, but still can't get the sites to appear at the top to view the data.

A little assistance?

12/17/2009 2:15:12 PM

^ I haven't used bufkit in a while. IIRC, the download site and pretty explicit instructions.

12/17/2009 2:35:10 PM

Seems like a 2nd low further south in the bay of campeche could become the dominating force in this system and I dont know whether that changes the forecast for the area or not if that low takes over as the dominant feature rather than the current low off the gulf coast.

12/17/2009 3:03:17 PM

WAT

desktop weather models? where?

12/17/2009 3:05:26 PM

They've already treated I-40 in Raleigh with the salt solution. I'd imagine they're following suit on other main roads as well.

12/17/2009 3:06:09 PM

EXCUSE ME

CAN I SAY 'I TOLD YOU SO' YET?

12/17/2009 3:08:01 PM

No, b/c

Quote :

"AIN'T SHIT GONNAHAPPEN"

12/17/2009 3:12:04 PM

i love reading this thread seeing everyone get all worked up. brings entertainment to my day

12/17/2009 3:15:18 PM

Quote :

"I'm trying to get it to work on my pc and I'm having a little trouble. I can't get GSO or RDU to show up on the profiles list at the top. I've entered them several ways, but it still doesn't show up. I've also setup the file locations in BUFGET to download model data for gso and rdu, and that seems to work fine, but still can't get the sites to appear at the top to view the data."

Make sure you're using the correct radio button to indicate which model you want to view. Other than that, I launch BufKit from BufGet and it works fine.

12/17/2009 3:17:45 PM

is buffkit the one where you find out precip type based on soundings?

12/17/2009 4:09:16 PM

12/17/2009 4:09:41 PM

^^^Ah, yes! Thanks!
It only shows locations it has model data for... for whatever reason it isn't reading my nam data, yet it is downloading (eta). GFS3 and RUC work fine.

These are my lines in BUFGET:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/ruc_kgso.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/eta_kgso.buf
# http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/etam_kgso.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/gfs3_kgso.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/wrf/nmm_4/nmm_kgso.buf

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/ruc_krdu.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/eta_krdu.buf
# http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/etam_krdu.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/bufkit/data/gfs3_krdu.buf
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/wrf/nmm_4/nmm_krdu.buf

12/17/2009 4:15:19 PM

this is going to be one of those ones where nobody knows.

NWS hasn't said anything new in 14 hours...just looks like they don't want to be wrong.

12/17/2009 4:20:52 PM

Quote :

"is buffkit the one where you find out precip type based on soundings?"

It's one of the programs that does that...
This makes it a lot easier if that's all you want to do:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~nwsfo/storage/nomogram/

12/17/2009 4:21:17 PM

and of course they updated right as i posted.

they said NAM looks less snow, GFS (as above) looks like the low pushes out more and so more snow.

they basically went with the NAM. we'll see i guess

12/17/2009 4:25:37 PM

Hedging their bets. NAM hasn't looked all that good this year, really, but we'll see. I think they want less fear-mongering. They have the hardest forecasts to make when it concerns winter weather than almost any other WFO in the country, just because of NC's weird geographical characteristics. Sucks.

12/17/2009 4:29:36 PM

they also said something about snow storm on christmas

12/17/2009 4:32:53 PM

12/17/2009 4:40:09 PM

My office mate was just showing me AFWA's mesoscale ensemble runs and it's showing more freezing rain than snow over Raleigh.

Looking at the forecast data for the P-type nomograms, the NAM agress with that forecast. The GFS seems to be calling for all snow, but it also has a cold bias where winter weather is concerned.

[Edited on December 17, 2009 at 4:45 PM. Reason : bufkit]

12/17/2009 4:42:02 PM

^^ damn what is that from?

12/17/2009 4:51:43 PM

I know weather.com is garbage but it's interesting that they are saying 1-1.5 inches of RAIN. Jeez... that'd be a lot of snow of temps lined up, which they probably won't...

12/17/2009 5:11:02 PM

^^ WSI

12/17/2009 5:22:32 PM

Quote :

"that'd be a lot of snow of temps lined up, which they probably won't..."

More of the moisture would go into cooling the column, thus less snow. This snow system looks less and less likely with each subsequent run.

12/17/2009 5:58:22 PM

i could have told you that 5 days ago. always turns out that way.

12/17/2009 6:23:18 PM

No, it doesn't and no you couldn't. Not with any real evidence to back it up. Other than your intuition.

You were ALWAYS King Pessimist in school.

[Edited on December 17, 2009 at 6:48 PM. Reason : ]

12/17/2009 6:41:28 PM

They've already salted the roads here in the Triad

12/17/2009 6:44:51 PM

Haha, seems like more often than not the models will trend toward snow at the beginning, then later converge on more rain.

I'm going to ohio the day after christmas. perhaps i'll see some good snow there.

[Edited on December 17, 2009 at 7:07 PM. Reason : yep]

12/17/2009 7:06:31 PM

This is one of the very few times where I wish they are being overly optimistic and it's just a light dusting and the highways are clear. Sadly, too many sources are saying snow accumulation though.

12/17/2009 7:07:36 PM

One of my favorite things about meteorology classes was that whenever interesting weather was coming up, as soon as we'd walk in the classroom, Brandon would say, "It ain't gonna snow, man!" or, "That storm won't do anything."

No matter what.

12/17/2009 7:11:22 PM

haha, those were the good ol' days. i wish we had spent more time on forecasting, actually.

12/17/2009 7:13:50 PM

^^^ why don't you want any snow? Traveling somewhere?

Or was I reading what you said wrong?

[Edited on December 17, 2009 at 7:14 PM. Reason : x]

12/17/2009 7:14:01 PM

instead of just one class at the very end of the four years when you actually put the equations down and talk about actual weather.

12/17/2009 8:11:32 PM

Quote :

"why don't you want any snow? Traveling somewhere?"

Traveling between Burlington and the other side of Greensboro to either hang out at her place or pick her up, bring her here and then take her back. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a more definitive idea as to what I am getting myself into weatherwise. I've read everything from freezing rain (New 2 in GSO) to straight snow -> PL (sleet) -> snow (NWS, wunderground).

It also depends on when the precip actually begins at the surface. Several hours of virga just won't cut it. I guess I will be bugging to chick who launches the upper air balloon to let me take a peak at the mid-level temp/dew point while at work tonight.

12/17/2009 8:58:48 PM

In NOVA had very little snow last winter....we have already had about 5-6 inches with the one a couple weeks ago, they are calling for 10-12 inches for this one...and then there might be another one next week. I am heading to NC Friday AM, leaving early, hopefully will run into rain and the nasty mix if it happens will be later in the night. I kinda want to see a big snow, but oh well....lol.....it is nice at first then it just sticks around and turns into ice and is a big pain because it takes forever to melt. Luckily, the one a couple weeks ago it rained like 3 days later and washed it all away.



I was in college when we had that blizzard, so I have been in a big snow.

[Edited on December 17, 2009 at 9:55 PM. Reason : w]

12/17/2009 9:53:26 PM

I know that weather.com is really unreliable, but I find it funny that they have us getting all rain tomorrow, then snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas.

12/18/2009 2:48:50 AM

not lookin that promising for a lot of snow...might be an annoying amount of ice though

12/18/2009 7:56:56 AM

Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?!

12/18/2009 8:21:51 AM