And so it begins …

The big winter storm is starting to organize over the Southwest before it moves east, with cold arctic air descending from Canada and moist air from the Gulf of Whatever streaming up across the southeast colliding to form a mix of snow to the north, rain in the deep south, and a mess of freezing rain in between. Not a lot of change from yesterday’s post other than the areas to be whacked are becoming clearer. The details might shift a little, but here is the summary as it looks as of Friday morning. The main event on the east coast will be Saturday afternoon in to Sunday.

The biggest problem is figuring out where the band of freezing rain will be. Here is what the NWS WPC maps forecast generated this morning looks like:

Closer to home, the heart of the Frogmore Metroplex (Coastal GA and the SC Lowcountry) looks to be all rain. Some of the fringes and surrounding wastelands (Summerville, Statesboro) and far inland areas (Millen, Hampton) have a lo chance of getting some freezing rain and ice. This slide is form this morning’s briefing by the Charleston WSFO:

Following the rain, temperatures will plummet into the 20s, with wind chills dropping into the mid teens or below even on the coast:

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A huge swath of the country is under watches and warnings are starting to go up as the impacts are anticipated to start in 24 to 36 hours:

Across the southeast the big concern is freezing rain. Freezing rain is a nightmare, because it sticks to surfaces and the weight starts to build up pretty quickly, especially when you get over a quarter inch (as shown on the map above). That’s when power lines start to come down, bigger tree limbs fracture, and travel becomes impossible. The big snowfall generally doesn’t cause as bad a problem, especially farther north where they have the infrastructure to deal with it. But it will still cause disruptions. Here is the warning for North Georgia:

Several major airports are in the swath of the ice, including Atlanta. Hartsfield/Jackson is the busiest airport in the world, and it’s possible ice will shut it down. Even if not, operations will almost certainly be impacted. There used to be a joke in the south that it didn’t matter if you were going to heaven or hell, you had to go through Atlanta. (That obviously makes Atlanta purgatory, which any Georgia Tech student will conform 😛 ). Memphis and Charlotte are in the ice swath as well. Snow will slow things down to the north, and by Sunday the big New York area airports will be dealing with wind and snow and ops will be curtailed. Bottom line is to expect delays, cancellations, and misery. Please don’t dump that misery to the airlines people, they don’t want you to be stuck any more than you do (less maybe, because they have to hear you whine about it!). Embrace the suck and move on …

As for travel by road, if there is ice, don’t. Just don’t.

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For specific warnings for your (or any other) location, the best thing to do is go the the National Weather Service main web page, you can click on the map, or enter a city or zip code in the upper left corner and it will take you do the detailed forecasts. This is the original data – stuff you get from apps or other web pages mostly comes from NWS, so why not go to the source?

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