Could we really see snow Saturday?

I’ll get right to the point yes we could and yes maybe even in Charlotte area and Piedmont.  Now no it’s not going to be accumulating but it could be falling from the sky mixed with some very cold rain.

The sure bet is in the mountains where 3-5” of snow is likely with isolated amount of 6-8” at the highest elevations near the Tennessee line.  East of the mountains it gets a bit murky on what we could see:

Forecast Discussion Video:

Maps:

This is a monster upper level system which has origins form Hurricane Ana in the pacific about a week ago. It’s not only brining very cold surface air, but insanely low temperatures aloft which can be bought down to the surface with a the rain and snow that falling.

SREF Plumes for Charlotte:

Basically this is a look at 22 runs of the ensemble models and the high end run is 3.5” low end near zero but a mean or average of just under 1”.

Snowfall chances of 1” of snowfall from WPC:

Snowfall forecast from the NAM model: