Early thoughts on the Winter Storm Potential for Monday-Tuesday

With cold air surging into the Carolinas over the next few days and especially this weekend. The set-up for a potential winter storm is slowly coming together. Like most Carolina winter storms the big question is the storm track and ultimately what type of winter precip and how much?

One thing is for sure I see all this starting as some snow for the Piedmont west into the mountains. Then things get tricky as we start to see a mix of sleet and even freezing rain and then maybe to rain at some point Monday. Then to make it more fun a switch back to snow at the end is possible late Tuesday into Wednesday.

GFS Model Operational Run Today:

Starting late Sunday and into Monday morning, the moisture will be riding up and over a very cold and dry airmass. The models usually always handle this arctic air very poorly. Which means it’s usually colder and drier than the model indicates. That being said I can see this starting as snow and staying snow or sleet for a while until Monday afternoon or early evening.

At some point though late Monday into Tuesday, the warm air will try to win out and change things to rain. There is still uncertainty on when this happens, and honestly, this is really dependent on the storm track. Which is still uncertain.

Then depending on the track and how strong it is we could see the rain change back to snow at the end. In the mountains, this will likely stay snow the entire time.

The GFS Ensembles:

How much?

Lots of uncertainty still and with mixing I don’t believe I will truly know what and how much until closer to Friday. So don’t get excited about anything yes because this has all the making of a wintry mix of everything!