Whew….what a forecast we have ahead here for the Lowcountry. Its not one that we deal with often but we have a lot of fun and excitement when wintry weather is mentioned around here. Several times each winter season we think “just maybe” it will happen. It takes a lot across the Lowcountry to get snow to fall. Since we are so influenced by the Atlantic, its hard to get good cold air in place while we have moisture overhead. I like to attribute it to baking a cake. You can have all the ingredients but if the oven is just not right, the cake will come out wrong.

So all that being said, the weather situation we have shaping up for Friday PM and Saturday morning is probabally the best snow potential we have had here for several years. Anytime during winter that we see a low pressure area moving off the Florida east coast btween Jacksonville and Cape Caneveral it bears watching, epecially if we have near freezing temperatures in the forecast. For Friday night, we have both. Below is the HPC forecast low track for this southern late week winter storm.

(Image Courtesy: HPC/NOAA)

On this path, the low would deepen (strengthen) as it moves parallel to the East Coast. This track is a bit far to the east for us to see a real humdinger of a snow event but the wrap around moisture to the west of the center is expected to be broad enough to give us at least a chance of getting some of the white stuff. IF the low moves further north than shown above, we may have to change the forecast a good bit. The graphic below is from the morning run of the GFS global model. It shows the 120 hour forecast storm total snowfall with this system:

(Image Courtesy:WxCaster.Com)

If this was to verify it would mean a good snow event for eastern South Carolina all the way to the coast. Some places east of I-95 would wind up with 3-4″ from inland Beaufort County northeast through central Berkeley County. Charleston would see 2-3″ and areas right on the coast east of Hwy. 17 around 0.5-1.0″. So will it actually happen….at this point your guess is just about as good as ours! The thing to remember is that this is all forecast model output…it’s not set in stone, it’s not what we are forecasting…it is only one of many possibilities.

Our best guess this morning is that starting late on Friday afternoon, showers will be around south of the Savannah River. As the low moves to our east it will deepen. This should spread more moisture back into the coastal counties and help keep the showers pushing north into our viewing area. As the moisture moves in cold air will already be in place away from the coast. The cold air should continue to move toward the coast overnight. With the cold air deepening as well, I am going with a changeover from showers during the late evening to light snow by midnight lasting through the sunrise hour. The main limiting factors for calling for any accumulation now is we are not confident on the exact path of the low and the soil and surface temperatures will be warm enough to melt whatever falls at the onset. All this could change, almost hour by hour so stay with us as this all shapes up. I would not be suprised to see a Winter Weather Advisory or a Winter Storm Watch posted by this afternoon or tonight. We are staying in close contact with our good friends at the National Weather Service and will pass along the notes as we get them in.

Chad Watson
Live 5 Meteorologist

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