Early Friday Morning Update

Just taking a look at the latest model data early this morning... and there really are no big changes in the thinking for our weekend forecast. Most of today should be mostly cloudy and mild. We may see a few showers by late afternoon and evening. Our rain chances will pick up during the day Saturday when the rain may be heavy at times. Lingering showers will continue into Sunday. From tonight through Sunday morning, we could see anywhere between 1 to 2 inches of rain.

Colder air will be moving into North Carolina Sunday as an upper level low pressure system helps to develop a surface low pressure off the Carolina coast. That system has the potential to produce what could be a significant winter weather event somewhere in the central and eastern Carolinas. Questions still remain as to what part of the Carolinas would see the highest precipitation. There is still a fair amount of disagreement among the various computer forecast models. It is still much to early to start speculating on snowfall amounts except to say this type of storm system is one that can create a "big impact" event in our area. However, the computer models haven't been too reliable this winter season, and if you have lived in North Carolina long enough, you know there can be a lot of changes in a winter weather forecast.

Here's a quote from this morning's forecast discussion issued by the National Weather Service in Raleigh:

GIVEN THE NATURE OF THE EVENT...IT IS IMPORTANT THAT RESIDENTS...STATE AND COUNTY OFFICIALS...STAY WELL INFORMED OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS AS THIS POTENTIAL WINTER EVENT EVOLVES. THIS SYNOPTIC PATTERN IS HIGHLY FAVORABLE FOR STRONG SYNOPTIC AND MESOSCALE SCALELIFT...WITH HEAVY PRECIP BANDS THAT TYPICALLY RESULT IN A HIGH SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL IMPACTS.

We'll continue to provide the most up to date information every 10 minutes with Weather on the Ones on News 14 Carolina through the weekend. As time permits, we'll have updates here on our weather blog and on our Twitter updates seen on the right side of our blog. As always, we welcome your questions in our blog's comment section.