Bat signal engaged

Well, this may be one of my more terrible storms as far as the waffle. I felt good as far as where were we 48 hours ago, but the rapid and consistent move of all the models made it seem like that was the movement it was heading. I was expecting MAYBE a little sleet in Lynchburg to start, and Roanoke maybe a little sleet and freezing rain. Nothing that was a big deal and over early.

The model data started to shift back this AM and now all agree the other way. Taken literally-- 2-3 inches of sleet in Lynchburg and even more snow/sleet in Roanoke. The weather happens, the models try and guess.

The facts:

The storm arrives after midnight. When there is low level cold air, it's common that some places start as what seems as rain and as the intensity picks up it goes from that to even sleet or snow. There was an ice event in December of 2005 that started as freezing rain, went to snow-- back to sleet and then a pretty good ice event. This may end up somewhat like that.

Heaviest of the precipitation will be from dawn on Boxing day till mid afternoon.

The speculation:

If the colder trends are legit- we will have Winter Storm warning west of the Blue Ridge and advisories east, north of the Staunton river. Since .5 is a warning, these cold be expanded.


The issues:

We need the cold air to get here. If the cold air is a little later or storm quicker, we will get more rain and less ice. This is a very plausible option at this time.


I love these "computer generated snow maps- they are usually full of crap. this one is, as it's accumulating snow when it should be sleet. This one has from the GFS has 4 inches in Lynchburg near Campbell county and 0 down near Brookneal in Campbeel County. My guess is this map isn't seeing the warm air above 5000k feet and this is more sleet. As a result, it's more like 25% of what falls here like an inch in LYH. Possible, not a forecast. Yet.