The breakdown of the upcoming winter weather on Monday

There's certainly been a lot of talk about the weather forecast for Monday. The biggest reason the forecast is bouncing back and forth on the totals is honestly no legitimate Meteorologist or Forecaster has a good handle on the storm. The good news is models are starting to become more agreeable with the forecast. The biggest reason for uncertainly lies with the position of the low pressure that will bring the moisture and the position of the high pressure that is providing us with the cold air we currently have in place. 

If the high pressure moves as the models are indicating we will see warm air move itself in over head as the moisture is falling in the area. For starters take a look at the photo below.You can see the Low pressure system that is near the gulf looks to be tracking west of the area. It will bring us moisture the problem is it may bring it l=at a later period which makes wintry precipitation like snow very unfavorable. 

The high pressure will pull the cold air away as the moisture moves through the area. This will cause the precipitation to change as that occurs. Based on the current models here is the timeline that I currently have in place.

• Snow will begin to fall in the county in the overnight hours of Monday morning. My current thinking is between 2 & 4am.
• Around 8am Monday Morning we will see snow begin to transition over to sleet.
• The sleet will begin to mix in and transition over to freezing rain around midday.
• The precipitation should transition over to all rain in the afternoon hours around 2pm. 

The additional uncertainty based on the changeover for the precipitation is how much accumulation do we get? At this point I feel we will see between a half inch to an inch of snow. As you can see from the picture below we currently have a 20 - 30% chance of an inch of snow in the western areas of the county.

The penitential for ice accumulation of 0.10 of an inch is in a range of 20 - 30% as well.

The total rainfall accumulation possible as of right now is around a half inch. The good news with the rainfall that will come in on the backend of this system any snow and ice that is out there will melt pretty quickly. Now I know the question still on all of your minds. Well why is this so hard to nail down? Take a look at the picture below.

The blue in the picture represents cold air. The yellow wedge area you see moving to a point in the top right hand of the photo represents warm air. As you can see from the far right of the picture if we have cold air all the way from the cloud to the ground we get all snow. That is how this system will start out during the overnight hours on Monday. As we move through the day that yellow area of warm air begins to wedge itself in between the clouds and the ground. As the warm air gets thicker and thicker we will begin to transition to sleet, freezing rain and then eventually all rain. 

It all comes down to how long it takes for that warm air to move in and win out. As we get closer to Monday it will become more certain on when that could happen. For now here's what you should do.

• Do plan for winter weather on Monday morning into the afternoon hours.
• Don't panic as the effects from the storm will only last for about a half to three quarters of the day on Monday.
• Don't expect to be able to go outside and play in the snow for very long as it will be short lived before the ice and rain ruin it.
• Don't wipe stores out of bread and milk as this will not be a multiple day event.

I will post another blog update tomorrow on the changes that may have occurred with the models but the trend is starting to become consistent for what is currently being forecast. The only real changes will be the total accumulation. Don't worry as much about that part. The mix of precipitation is coming that's the thing to plan for without panic. As always thank you for following Rowan County Weather!