February 15-19 Potential Snowstorm and Ice Storm

The February 15 through 19 period is increasing in likelihood that we will see a winter storm, potentially with an ice storm component.

Tropical Tidbits
Click images to enlarge

The image above shows the GFS forecast for precipitation type over the United States for the morning of February 16th. Here, we see precipitation breaking out over the Southern Plains and along the Gulf Coast as a low pressure system advects northeast-ward. In this forecast, we see a snow shield placed from southern Illinois into Missouri, Arkansas, and the Tennessee/Kentucky area, with rain blossoming in Texas, Louisiana, and southern Mississippi. We also see a rather broad swath of sleet, potentially freezing rain in southeast Oklahoma, central Arkansas, and northern Mississippi. This freezing rain/sleet delineation could prove to be a serious issue for those in the South, especially with memories of the ice storm from last year still fresh.

Tropical Tidbits

By the evening of February 16th, the low pressure system responsible for this precipitation is trekking along the Gulf Coast, located along the Mississippi/Alabama border in this graphic. A rain shield encompasses Louisiana, Mississippi, and a good chunk of both Alabama and Georgia. Snow is falling in eastern Tennessee, the western Carolinas, and extreme western Virginia, with a small band of freezing rain / sleet in northern Mississippi and Georgia. It's encouraging to see the freezing rain shield shrink from our last image, but as freezing rain is so tricky to predict, I wouldn't take that part of this forecast verbatim.

Tropical Tidbits

By early morning on February 18th, the storm has transferred offshore and is beginning to strengthen over warm waters along the coast of the East US. Snow continues to fall in much of North and South Carolina, with rain prevailing in southern Georgia and much of Florida. Heavier bands of snow are already impacting coastline locations in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, with New Jersey on the northern fringe of this heavy snow shield. From there, the storm continues north and east.

Snow accumulation charts are unreliable in this case, as some methods for snowfall will accidentally count freezing rain and sleet as snow, unrealistically amplifying snow totals. Thus, it would be unwise to show a snow total chart for those in Arkansas, where that unrealistic amplification of totals is likely to occur.

WxCaster

I want to now look at the forecasted freezing rain accumulation chart from the short-range NAM model over the Eastern US. In this chart, we can see where freezing rain is most likely to occur. Again, because freezing rain is so hard to predict in advance, take this with a relative grain of salt. Regardless, let's see who may be affected. The highest freezing rain totals appear in western South Carolina, where accumulations of 0.50" to 0.75" could be found. Significant accumulations of 0.25" to 0.50" extend through the rest of the Carolinas, and isolated spots of similar totals stretch back through northern Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama, all the way to southern Arkansas. While you shouldn't expect to see this chart verify exactly as-is, it gives you a good idea as to who may be affected by freezing rain from this storm.

To summarize:

- A storm system in the Southern US looks to bring wintry precipitation to states such as Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.
- Accumulating snowfall is possible, particularly in Tennessee and Kentucky.
- Accumulating freezing rain is possible, particularly in southern Arkansas, northern Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Andrew