Potential Winter Storm for Western Carolinas late this week (1/6/25, 2:00 pm)

Good Monday afternoon,

We continue to monitor the potential of a winter weather event for later this week across a large chunk of the Southeast US including the Western Carolinas.

After looking at the 12z model suite we have updated our thoughts on this system. In the graphic below is what we see at this time. The two biggest takeaways as of Monday afternoon is that…

1. Multiple precipitation types are expected for all nine counties in our coverage area.
2. Given the fast flow at the jet stream level, this system won’t have the capability to slow down and evolve into a major winter storm.

Looking at the synoptic setup, a large trough is currently delivering arctic air into the Eastern US, another reinforcement will move in Wednesday night and Thursday.

Meanwhile, southern stream energy will begin to move east late Thursday with a surface low forming along the Gulf Coast.

A mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain will move ENE through Saturday morning. The latest ensemble forecast has increased the percentages of receiving 1-inch of snow from this storm. The I-40 corridor lies at about 40-45 percent with between 20-30 percent across the Western Piedmont.

The probabilities for mountain areas are now above 50 percent.

Summary

At this time its still too early to make any forecasts on specific amounts of winter precipitation. As we stated at the beginning of this update, the progressive nature of this storm should prevent it from being a major winter storm (in terms of amounts). As of the Monday afternoon update we are keeping the Winter Storm Index at Level 1.