Weekend Winter Weather Update

As I have posted for the last few days. There is just not much to buy into on the possibility of wintry precipitation this weekend. The window is so tight and the chance of it happening is limited to a very small area. I am not even going to forecast anything other than rain for the county even to this point. The models have just not been too consistent with the possibility. I have been posting updates with both the GFS and ECMWF Models over the past few days and the ECMWF Model which is the more reliable model for winter weather is not even showing the possibility of wintry weather anymore. It has been trending down all week long. The GFS still holds out hope for a very brief window of freezing rain for an area outside of the county along the I-77 and I-40 corridors where both of these interstates cross each other. The window is so limited that I just don't buy it.

So here is the model. It has four quadrants that display the possibilities of different types of precipitation.

• Top Left: Icy Precipitation model is and has been blank for days.
• Top Right: Freezing Rain. The model has shown Freezing Rain chances for days. The area has continued to get smaller and smaller in each of the model runs. The one real change with he current model run is that is the only precipitation showing for those areas. So if any area had a shot for freezing rain in the overnight hours form Friday Night into Saturday Morning it will be the areas shaded in pink. I am still not sold on that however,
• Bottom Left: Rain this window has been the most consistent in all of the model runs. When you combine this along with the other factors of the air a loft as well as the air temperature at the ground. The timing of the moisture arriving fits as a more likely scenario of a cold rain for everyone.
• Bottom Right: Snow has only been likely for the highest elevations along the NC/TN border and these would most likely be on the westward facing slopes.

That's the latest update for this weekend. I will provide another update tomorrow and Friday as we continue to march toward the weekend. All of this continues to be pointing toward a cold rain event for Rowan County. As always thank you for following Rowan County Weather!