First flakes of the season possible across the piedmont
It seemed as soon as the calendar changed to December so did our weather. The temperatures have dropped big time into the 40 for highs and the 20s for lows and now there is even a chance for our first few flakes of snow. Lets be clear a few flakes doesn’t equal accumulations. You won’t be making snowmen, sledding or having a snowball fight this weekend. You will though if outside at the ACC football Championship game at Bank of America stadium see some light rain mixed with a few wet snowflakes Saturday night. Here’s what might happen.
The NAM model we use is showing a fast moving clipper system moving out of the Midwest and diving southeast towards the Carolinas. These types of systems are usually moisture starved and primarily bring snow showers and cold to the great lakes. The blue line below is where the arrow is point to is the freezing line or in this case the rain/snow line. Notice the green areas that is the moisture which isn’t great unless some Atlantic moisture can get pulled in and even if that happens the speed of system would keep snow/rain totals down. This image is from Saturday evening.
The next image is 6 hours later Sunday morning and notice the cold air or snowline has moved further south. But the moisture is moving out fast.
What you are basically seeing here is a a few light rain showers ending as a few flurries for the Charlotte metro area. This bears out when you look at the temperatures profiles from the same model below. The green is all rain but it might be just cold enough for a few flakes of snow around Charlotte.
The story changes quite a bit the further north when you go like around the I-40 corridor. This sounding is from Hickory and shows much more snow in blue mixing in than rain which is in Green.
Here’s what the NAM model thinks about accumulations which is way overdone in my opinion. Even if you get this snow to fall the ground is way too warm for it to stick.
So overall not a really big deal mostly a cold rain with a few flakes of snow, but if you live in the mountain this will be all snow and likely 2-4”. So it’s fun to talk about and should put us all in the holiday spirit. Oh…. and did I mention it’s going to stay very cold into next week? 
