Busy day for Meteorologists deflates Shock and Awe on Social Media

Well, that’s what the headline should say… A better Headline would be, “Forecasters Hold True to Their Craft”. Folks, anyone with access to a model site saw this weekend’s weather coming over a week ago…And they posted it!!!  NC Weather Happens put it on your RADAR to let you know as it would be a big Holiday travel weekend. That’s how we roll. Sorry, no shock and awe for you from this site. Confidence has not even been close to High for this event. We have advised caution in following sites that post pretty pictures of 9 inch snow totals for Winston Salem and we have urged you to take what you hear on Social Media with a grain of salt…Still they are shared and posted and shared again…viral.  Here we are…

Now that the diatribe is out of the way, here is the business of NC Weather Happens.

First, where and what is this Piedmont thing? Piedmont is literally translated from Latin meaning “Foothills”. In North Carolina, it is Geographically defined as the area between the Fall Line (the point where a river can no longer be navigated from the sea) and the Mountains. This would be between basically Durham and Hickory east/west. Here is a map so to make it better.

Ok. This is the area which NC Weather Happens likes to work in. We know this area well and this is our forecasting turf! if you live outside of this area, there are awesome forecasters in Burke County and Cherokee as well as Boone and Hendersonville that can give you great Mountain forecasts. East of the Piedmont, there are equally fantastic sites to follow that all understand weather there. We want you to follow a site that knows the weather around you and we focus here. 

Now back to the Weather…

The European model first came out last week showing an 8.7 inch snowfall for the Triad. This has been reduced to maybe an inch with a lot of cold rain! 

This morning’s article discussed why we feel the European is bonkers. The model it is suggesting 5 inches of snow in Winston Salem and the air temperature is 35 degrees! This can happen, but there isn’t support for that scenario. As of this writing, there are only 11 of 51 Ensemble members suggesting snow (no intra-model consensus). It will be too warm on the ground and in the air for any accumulation. Our Border counties to the north, may see an inch or so of accumulation on grassy areas but that’s about it. Sorry folks. We have no accumulation map, snow totals, or even what will happen…Just going to be a Cold Rainy Day with some Wet Snow mixed in. That makes for a really boring map. 

What we will say is this…We are new online so no one knows what to expect. We wish we could post those first awesome looking snow total maps from the Euro or other models, but we won’t. We have access to them just like everyone else does for $20.00 a month. We actually spend time looking at other things that influence OUR weather before posting those things. We share what we feel will happen. Plain and simple.

Bottom Line:

For the Piedmont expect to see a cold rain with some snow (and perhaps some sleet) mixed in. NO ACCUMULATION EXPECTED. This close to the event, other more measurable things are trumping whatever this storm can do…and they all say it just isn’t going to be cold enough. Just inside of 4 days, this is a very good forecast.  

We add this…

There are other fine sites out there that can cover your specific area if you live outside of the Piedmont and we ask that you use them as they will have expert knowledge of the area. If you live here and want actionable weather information, we encourage to give us the winter season. If you want pretty pictures to share with your friends, NC Weather Happens is probably not going to be a fun site this winter (unless it is really going to happen). NC Weather Happens reports the weather…not models.

If you will be travelling, the northeast looks to be a general mess especially in  Virginia and points north and east. If there is anything that changes this forecast, you will be the first to know!

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NC Weather Happens. Enjoy it!