January 23-25th Winter Wx

[Blountwolf]

A little late to the conversation, but I'm failing to see how the models were wrong? The snow, ice, and sleet totals have barely changed. They've just moved North. People who were on the southern edge of the snow have been consistently warned that even a slight move North would turn the snow into freezing rain.

Forecast 4 days ago: "It looks like there's some big snow potential but if the system moves north it'll be freezing rain".

*System moves north and turns into freezing rain*

Weenies: "These models make no sense!!"

Neither the meteorologists or models have been wrong. WX Twitter and hype casters were wrong, and if you listened to them blame yourself.

Meh - typical disappointment syndrome, I expect - we get so few of these, anything that says "NO SNOW FOR YOU!" suddenly makes no sense to otherwise sensible people. I know because I was of those weenies myself when I first started at this. Wishcasting is real.

 

[Baxter]

Yes, I am giving my age away here, 1973 Atlanta is still in my lifetime, the mother of them all in Atlanta. It started on January 7, 1973, as sleet at 32 degrees around 1 pm, then worsened drastically through the night and the next day. It rained well over 4 inches; needless to say, the ice was crippling, we did not have power for two weeks, and the debris from all of the downed trees took months to clean up. This was also a wedge event. I remember some family that lived in Birmingham, they had 63 degrees and heavy thunderstorms, and we even had lightning in Atlanta. It was insane, I was 15 years old. The temp dropped to about 20 that night and did not rise above 32 for four days.

 

[N4GK]

A little late to the conversation, but I'm failing to see how the models were wrong? The snow, ice, and sleet totals have barely changed. They've just moved North. People who were on the southern edge of the snow have been consistently warned that even a slight move North would turn the snow into freezing rain.

Forecast 4 days ago: "It looks like there's some big snow potential but if the system moves north it'll be freezing rain".

*System moves north and turns into freezing rain*

Weenies: "These models make no sense!!"

Neither the meteorologists or models have been wrong. WX Twitter and hype casters were wrong, and if you listened to them blame yourself.

“Neither the meteorologists or models have been wrong”. Excuse me? So the Mets and models aren’t wrong because the event hasn’t happened? Well, I guess you’re right, but in the same way you guess your pants size without a tape measure. When it’s time to go out to eat, and you need to get dressed, and your 34 waist is actually 36, if you squeeze into them, were you actually right?

 

[TVILLE96]

As far as the low level warm air pushing north, the only way I could see that going wrong is if the precipice breaks out earlier than shown….the rain free conditions for central Alabama starting Friday into Saturday intro Saturday night makes the air easier to move and displace…however is precip breaks out earlier than modeled, the air will be cooler and more difficult to move, I have seen where this happened and the wedge winds up being stronger, there may be some ductinging/gravity wave scenerio that could tap into the much colder air to the west and north. I am not doubting what the models show, unless things start differently, then all bets are off.

Can the models have the warm nose placement incorrect ? Or is the warm nose more of a certainty over other ingredients of the weather ?

 

[Blountwolf]

Can the models have the warm nose placement incorrect ? Or is the warm nose more of a certainty over other ingredients of the weather ?

Richard, please correct me if I am wrong on this. It's actually one of the more difficult ingredients for the models to get right. Why? The warm nose is usually shallow and narrow. We’re often talking about a layer only a few thousand feet thick, sometimes thinner, and its exact position depends on small differences in wind direction, speed, and moisture transport. Models handle large-scale features like the Arctic high and the main storm track much better than these fine-scale thermal details. As for the long range models, the Euro is the better one at it though, higher resolution on that layer.

 

[bckhd2]

Unreal.

 

[Equus]

It's hard to imagine more than a quarter to half inch of ice on all the vulnerable pine species down here; northern MS is going to be a mess

 

[Archer6999]

Yeah, I've got a lot of trees where I'm situated and really would like not to have holes in the roof of my residence.

I just got 3 holes repaired in late 2025 from a summer thunderstorm that threw a huge poplar branch 100 feet into my roof. The tree didn't even overhang the house. I had to fight with insurance about for 4 months to repair it. I dropped a dozen problem trees to help my worry, but still have about 50 within striking distance. Now this. All I can say is at least I took down the most dangerous trees after that roof repair. I had one hanging directly over my wellhead and generator that I took out. That might be my saving grace. I'm in the NE corner of north Georgia. Nervous as can be. I just want this thing behind us so we can do it again next week. Or worse, what if we got ice storms two weekends in a row? Now THAT would be something.

 

[Richardjacks]

Richard, please correct me if I am wrong on this. It's actually one of the more difficult ingredients for the models to get right. Why? The warm nose is usually shallow and narrow. We’re often talking about a layer only a few thousand feet thick, sometimes thinner, and its exact position depends on small differences in wind direction, speed, and moisture transport. Models handle large-scale features like the Arctic high and the main storm track much better than these fine-scale thermal details. As for the long range models, the Euro is the better one at it though, higher resolution on that layer.

Yes first of all shallow cold air is very difficult to correctly forecast plus when it’s pushed against a mountain range like the appalachains….then if precipitation is thrown in, making that air even colder and more difficult to move, I have seen many severe storm forecasts fall to this kind of inaccuracy and when you deal with such an extremely cold airmass, there is much more at stake

 

[KevinH]

Can you knock it off? I realize you must have a grudge against either weather models or the tv weather enterprise as a whole considering you’ve posted non-stop about it for at least an hour.

If you do have an issue, you’re totally free to do that. Go make your own thread crusading against what you see as the all greedy local tv revenue scheme. However, stop derailing this thread with your “dear diary” posts.

This event still has a ways to go and for some they are receiving important updates here. Let’s not turn it into a crusade against models thread.

+10 @ColdFront

 

[Clancy]

I just got 3 holes repaired in late 2025 from a summer thunderstorm that threw a huge poplar branch 100 feet into my roof. The tree didn't even overhang the house. I had to fight with insurance about for 4 months to repair it. I dropped a dozen problem trees to help my worry, but still have about 50 within striking distance. Now this. All I can say is at least I took down the most dangerous trees after that roof repair. I had one hanging directly over my wellhead and generator that I took out. That might be my saving grace. I'm in the NE corner of north Georgia. Nervous as can be. I just want this thing behind us so we can do it again next week. Or worse, what if we got ice storms two weekends in a row? Now THAT would be something.

I definitely don't envy your position. Stay safe up there!

 

[N4GK]

Check out the horse manure Fox is spewing. Unbelievable.

 

[South AL Wx]

I know a few posters have mentioned the potential for flooding from this event. BMX's latest AFD says this:

"Another sneaky hazard with this event will be our prolonged rainfall
threat. Rainfall totals through the weekend will range from 2-4"
across our northern areas and 1-2" across the south. With this
rain falling over several days, we shouldn`t see too much of a
hydro threat develop. With that said, if totals continue to creep
up, a Flood Watch may be warranted going forward."

And, of course, you can't have a potential ice storm in portions of north Alabama without the potential of strong storms in south Alabama:

"We also need to be on the lookout for strong storms on
Sunday across the southern half of our area. Instability will
begin to climb as we warm up through the day with CAPE values
settling into the 400-600 J/kg range along with shear values from
50-60 knots. We will need to monitor how this situation develops
and keep an eye on the CAM trends over the coming days."

 

[Bulkshear]

Yes first of all shallow cold air is very difficult to correctly forecast plus when it’s pushed against a mountain range like the appalachains….then if precipitation is thrown in, making that air even colder and more difficult to move, I have seen many severe storm forecasts fall to this kind of inaccuracy and when you deal with such an extremely cold airmass, there is much more at stake

Richard,
If you don’t mind I would like your input for middle TN? From what I can see the warm air punches straight up to the KY line. Do you think it will have success from what you are seeing? This is the difference between a cold rain and over an inch of ice with rampant power outages and I would love your take

 

[akt1985]

An Ice Storm Warning is now out for most of northern Mississippi east of I-55.

 

[StormStalker]

View attachment 50144

Unreal.

That's a concerning graphic for my backyard. Hope it doesn't verify but I see why HUN pulled the trigger on the Ice Storm Warning here.

 

[N4GK]

That's a concerning graphic for my backyard. Hope it doesn't verify but I see why HUN pulled the trigger on the Ice Storm Warning here.

But the temps don’t jive with any ice. I can’t understand it.

 

[cincywx]

ILN just put out this graphic for my neck of the woods. I've seen 8"+ of snow a handful of times before, though I don't recall ever seeing it forecast with this much confidence more than a day in advance up this way.

 

[bckhd2]

But the temps don’t jive with any ice. I can’t understand it.

The HUN hourly view for Florence shows at or below freezing from roughly 7pm Friday through noon Tuesday.

 

[Mike S]

You're missing the point. None of us are saying we are better at it. We are saying that the weather forecasters show these models either too far in advance and fail to point out their usual failures at that time frame other than a dismissive "this could change, but the models are in agreement" stuff, or they just start the next storm with the same models and graphic from the same source that was just wildly wrong on the current one.

I can't answer that. The ones I pay attention to are pretty clear about what they're showing, what they mean and what they could or couldn't mean.

The *have* to address these things earlier and more in depth than they would prefer to counter all the social media weather experts dominating Facebook, TikTok, etc. Their hands are forced. That is exactly what we've been seeing with the current system in question. I don't envy their job.