Monday, December 13, 2010

Cold Weather is Here! Any Winter Precip to go with the Cold?

Crank up the heat! Another cold blast has arrived in the Carolinas keeping afternoon highs in the 30s in most of our area through the first half of the week. Windy conditions will keep wind chills in the 20s this afternoon and Tuesday afternoon. Wind chills could dip to between 1 and 5 degrees by early Tuesday morning!

Some spots in the Triangle and Sandhills reported light snow late Sunday night into early Monday morning leaving a coating of snow on some car windshields. Otherwise, look for dry conditions through the first half of the week. If you want to see snow, check out the mountains. 4-8" of snow is possible in elevations about 3000 feet today. At 9 am this morning, Boone was reporting snow with wind gusts up to 40mph. The wind chill was -10!

Things could get interesting here by early Thursday morning. We'll track a storm system across the southeast that could bring light precipitation to North Carolina before daybreak Thursday morning. Temperatures should be cold enough at that point for the precipitation to fall as a wintry mix before changing to rain at some point. The amount of precipitation and the time of that changeover is very uncertain now. That could make the difference between mostly a cold rain or an icy mix leading to travel headaches.

As we review the latest weather data over the next couple of days, we'll gain some certainty on Thursday's forecast.

Lee Ringer
News 14 Carolina Meteorologist
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