Winter Weather Outlook (1/12, 7 pm) for Jan 15-18

Good Monday evening,

With another 24 hours of model analysis, our confidence is growing that our mid-week weather will be just a cold front that will reinforce cold air across the Western Carolinas.

A deep trough will reinforce the cold air beginning Wednesday night. Post-frontal passage, northwest flow will deliver another accumulating snow event for the North Carolina Mountains.

Snowfall amounts on the image below indicates that a solid advisory-level event (1-3 inches) for the NC-TN border ending by roughly noon Thursday.

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One thing everyone will experience is reinforcement of cold air on Thursday. Highs will struggle to reach 40 degrees with howling northwest winds on Thursday.

Once the winds die down Thursday night, temperatures will plummet into the upper teens to low 20’s.

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Weekend snow chances still remain low

A second piece of energy will reinforce cold air across the region this weekend. However, you can see on the European model how the vorticity is in clusters within the main trough axis. The lack of consolidation will prevent appreciable moisture return across the Southeast.

Neither GFS nor European Ensembles are showing much in the way of precipitation for Saturday. For example, guidance has Hickory receiving between 0.1 – 0.5 inches of snow this weekend,

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Summary

A cold weather pattern is locked in this week and will stick through most of the current 10-Day forecast.

Confidence is high of accumulating mountain snow on Thursday with stray flurries possible across the Foothills.

The weekend system also remains moisture-starved at this time. With this being still five days out, there is time to see how guidance trends on the weekend system.