Weather

After a warm-up, another cold wave in time for Christmas

Here is an example for THIS MONTH of a phony baloney model snow forecast map made Dec 8th for TODAY! Big snow? Nope, sunshine. So just ignore that kind of BS when a clown person or APP shows it or you see it on social media:

ACCUMULATING snow is rare enough in the South at ANY POINT in time during winter. A White Christmas is on the level of once in a lifetime for most locations South of the Appalachians.

The past five to ten winters have on average been warmer than normal for much of the country, especially the month of December. So at least on that we are ahead of the game this year already having a couple cold snaps and even a couple days with some snow flurries.

In my forecast by the way “Snow Flurries” by definition means little or no accumulation on roads, at BEST a dusting on decks and rooftops.

To me a “real snow” has to be at least a half to one inch covering just about everything.

To be clear APPS do not use a meteorologist, they are automated digital robots. Most of them use a single computer model, not even the best one, out of roughly 8 dozen models. Same thing for web pages etc. Also, FaceBook and Twitter are not good news sources or weather sources due to a host of limitations I don’t have time to go into now.

Long-time followers of my blogs, on the radio forecasts, and on Twitter know full well how I feel about any source that toys with the public by posting eyebrow raising maps etc for clickbait to tease and titillate the public. I don’t play that game. If you like to be abused and exploited like that go somewhere else to be entertained and please never ask me about such rumor nonsense.

I’ve beat the dead horse on what the science can and can not do for decades now. I can’t repeat it constantly. It’s all still on-line in past blogs.

How does the Atlanta area USUALLY get a “real snow” or ice storm? It usually means a “Miller A” or some version of one. A low pressure storm track passing near the Gulf Coast and up the East Coast.

We ALMOST never get a real snow from the passage of a cold front.

What is being projected as of this post for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? A cold front.

I’ve been forecasting here over 3 decades and can remember one time we got an inch of snow from a cold front.

Usually, behind a strong low that is NOT a Miller A with a strong cold front passage, the most we get is some flakes in the air that not everyone even sees (it’s hit or miss) or a dusting with maybe an inch in the mountains.

We’ve already experienced both scenarios this December so that’s been fun and very unlike the last few winters.

Right now it looks like the PRIMARY MAIN LOW PRESSURE storm center or centers will be to our North, NOT passing on the Miller A track around December 24th-25th. I’ve circled where the models are clustering the most low location possibilities.

As you can see that far in the future there is much uncertainty and thus a lot that can change:

And that UNCERTAINTY means all sorts of options on the table for different potential scenarios:

PROJECTED SURFACE WEATHER CHARTS 8AM DECEMBER 24TH and 25TH:

Specific weather elements such as temperature, rain or snow amount, wind etc. can not scientifically be forecast reliably at or beyond roughly 6 days, doing so is needless useless speculation, gossip, and rumormongering. NOT the scientific method. Get sources that do that out of your life and mine please.

Why would models struggle with a forecast 5-15 days away? Uncountable dozens, let me show you just one. Where is the energy for the Christmas Eve system in question? Thousands of miles away in a data sparse part of the Pacific Ocean!:

I am on Christmas Vacation (hope more smooth than the movie). But if there’s anything relevant as we get closer to the holiday I will try to find time to post something, but no guarantees as I am on vacation. Everyone stay safe and healthy, have a blessed and Merry Christmas and New Year.

For daily weather info follow me on Twitter @MellishMeterWSB.

Kirk Mellish

Kirk Mellish

Meteorologist

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