Confidence continues to increase in a significant winter storm Sunday afternoon into early Monday morning.
National Weather Service Forecast Discussion below
A very potent low pressure system will be pushing across the
southeastern U.S. on Sunday morning, with wintry weather ongoing
to our southwest. The surface low will track north and east
from there across our region through Sunday night and into the
northeastern U.S. by Monday morning/afternoon.
Confidence has increased in the path of this system at this
point, with the expectation that the low pretty much bisects the
region tracking west of the I-95 corridor. Virtually all
guidance has come to this solution, with still varying tracks by
a little here and there. The key is, there is a consensus
starting to take shape.
This ultimately translates to a very messy forecast,
particularly along the I-95 corridor. With a strong surface high
to the north, don`t see any way we don`t at least see some
front end snowfall as the system approaches from the southwest.
However, thinking we see a fairly quick transition to wintry mix
then rain along/east of I-95 especially.
For areas west of the I-95 corridor, well it is going to depend
on how far west you are. Sill thinking areas east of the Blue
Ridge will changeover to a wintry mix and even to all rain at
some point. But think we could see more in the way of snowfall
as the cold air holds on longer just along/east of the Blue
Ridge. For areas west of the Blue Ridge out to the
Alleghenies...this is where we will likely see the big winners
in terms of snowfall with this event. Cold air is expected to
remain locked in place as the low tracks east of these areas.
All this being said, have come down a touch for the I-95
corridor in our winter threat matrix, as consensus builds on a
less impactful event there. For areas west, especially west of
the Blue Ridge, prepare for a significant winter storm Sunday
night into Monday. We aren`t quite into the range for any
snowfall amount forecasts just yet, so still a good bit of time
for things to shift one way or the other. In fact, the 12z suite
of guidance this morning will be the first that has a real
sample of the upper-level features at play, as they just moved
on land overnight. So, it is important to keep checking back in
on our forecast as we fine tune it in the days to come. The
ceiling for this event is high for the entire area if this
system were to shift east, so keep that in mind for your
planning purposes. For our latest forecasts, check
weather.gov/lwx/winter.