Good morning, welcome to the Saturday edition of the CCN Daily WEATHER UPDATE.
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This is kind of long as I will detail our wet weekend and our wintry work week.
We’ll have an off-and-on rainy weekend across Columbus County thanks to a complex frontal system that will move through. We have low pressure coming together along the northern Gulf coast and a cold front… THE cold front… lurking farther to the west. Behind this front is some of the coldest air we’ve seen in years. More on that in a few minutes.
The low will move northeastward along the Atlantic coast, and this is expected to bring showers to the area today. It won’t be raining everywhere, all the time… this should be mainly showery in nature. I expect our highs today to be in the mid to upper 50s.
The cold front continues to push eastward tonight. Low pressure lifts north along the front and that will enhance our rain chances overnight tonight and into Sunday morning. With the clouds and rain in the area, our lows tonight will “only” dip to the mid 40s.
Ahead of the cold front, we’ll have a push of very mild air into the area on Sunday and our highs should reach the mid 60s… but those temps will come in the early afternoon hours. The cold front moves through and temps take a tumble late. It should be around 50 by time you have supper on Sunday night… and by the time you wake up Monday morning, I expect temps in the lower 20s with wind chills in the 15-20 degree range.
Now. What you are REALLY here to read about: The deep freeze and the SNOW chances.
The guidance is starting to come together in a pattern that indicates accumulating snow for Columbus County. Just a reminder that conditions have to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, and the low pressure center really has to “thread the needle” with regard to track/positioning/moisture.
Cold air will be locked in place. That much, there’s zero doubt. I’m very confident that “phasing” causes low pressure to develop over the northern Gulf, and that low crosses north-central Florida to a position somewhere off the SC/NC coast on Wednesday.
Here’s where the confidence still starts to fizzle, and that is the storm track. Folks, a shift of even 25 miles can mean the difference between 3-4 inches of snow here, a crippling ice storm, or absolutely nothing at all. The latest deterministic GFS is trending even closer to the coast. This =pushes juuuust enough of Gulf stream air in that the middle layers of the atmosphere nudge to about 33-34 degrees, which sets the stage for a snow-to-ice storm event. I think it’s safe to say that nobody wants to see that. But that’s what the latest trends are showing from the GFS.
Euro and Canadian are indeed “threading the needle” with our storm center, keeping the low just far enough off the coast that we stay all snow here.
It is an extremely difficult forecast to pin down, as the storm in question has yet to even develop. Even with all of the technology at our fingertips, it’s still a guessing game.
There are many, many factors that determine the overall storm track. I won’t get into them here, or the length of this post will reach ridiculous levels. I’ll just sum it up like I did previously: Everything has to work out just perfectly for the snow to fly in Columbus County.
If everything plays out the way it is NOW, with no changes, then yes, we can expect a measurable snowfall here in Columbus County, at least a couple of inches. As of right now, Saturday morning, that snow would occur from later Tuesday afternoon, ending by sunrise on Wednesday.
Oh… it’s going to be COLD. Pipe-bursting cold. Highs on Tuesday and Wednesday will struggle to reach the freezing mark, with lows deep into the teens. Whatever snow we DO get, there won’t be much in the way of melting on Wednesday, and secondary roads could become dangerously icy Wednesday night. True melting won’t occur until we pop above freezing on Thursday.
And now a NEW threat: As our low pulls away, a frontal boundary is shown to develop along the coast. The latest modeling shows a new low spinning up on this frontal boundary. This is expected to be virtually on the beaches, lifting from Savannah through the Outer Banks… which would result in freezing rain Thursday night into Friday. An ice storm? Too early to call. But there’s the potential for additional travel headaches at the end of the work week.
Graphics include my 6-day outlook, the percent probability of at least 1 inch of snow, and the percent probability of at least 3 inches of snow (30% to 40% for Whiteville, 40% to 50% for eastern ColCo).
Thanks for reading, I know this was really lengthy, but again, thanks for supporting CCN.
As always, take care.
~Meteorologist Christopher Cawley
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