What happened to the snow?

Good evening everyone. I just wanted to say that I am disappointed that my forecast wasn't spot on today. I am all about credibility in my forecast and not hype. I always want to be able to say at the end of the day that I gave you the most accurate forecast for Rowan County than you would have gotten anywhere else. Let's take a look at my final forecast before this storm approached. 

"Monday: 90% chance of a wintry mix. We should see the precipitation start off as all snow. The air is really dry so it may take several hours before the snow saturates the air enough to reach the ground. After daybreak we should see a transition to sleet and freezing rain. Sometime in the mid afternoon we will transition over to all rain. Accumulation potentials are as follows. Snow a trace to an inch is possible. Ice 0.01 to 0.10 of an inch is possible. Rain a half inch of accumulation is possible. High of 33º and a low of 24º"

So let's start with the snow and what happened. 

The air between the clouds and the ground was really dry leading into this event. As of last night at around 10pm the dewepoints were at 5 degrees while the air temperature was around 24 degrees. Genreally to get any precipitation to reach the ground you need those numbers to be really close to each other or even matching. As of 3:30 this morning when I started my coverage for the day. The dewpoint was at 18 degrees and the air temperature was 23 degrees. Tht was also the time of the forecast period where conditions for snowfall were favorable. So basically any snowfall that may have ocurred evaporated on its way to the ground. 

The dewpoints and the air temperature realy never came together until the afternoon hours. At that point and even to the time of this blog post we are below freezing. We have been getting spotty freezing rain showers and sleet during this period. Now I know you may question the freezing rain part. Just remember freezing rain falls as liquid and then freezes upon impact. Now I forecasted between 0.01 - 0.10 of an inch of ice acumulation and we will certainly fall in that range. (If I was going to miss anything in the forecast this is what I  would have wanted to miss.)

Now with all that said here is what we can expect overnight. Temperatures are going to warm up to near 50. The Rowan Sakisbury School Systems Transportation department will go out around 4am to check roads around the county to determine what needs to be done for the school day tomorrow. Rin will transition in once we get above freezing and this will quickly melt any ice accumulation that is out there. 

In closing I want to again state how disappointed I am in how the forecast worked out and extend my apologies for that. 

As always thank you for following Rowan County Weather!