Snow or no? Right now predictions are trending toward the no end of that spectrum. The issue? A viral social media post predicting large amounts of snow for Georgia next week. The truth?
Here’s an outline from the National Weather Service:
“With storms behind us, we’re sure you’ve now seen posts showing fantastical amounts of snowfall from cherry-picked model runs valid triple-digit hours in the future for Atlanta. We urge you to ignore any numbers you’ve seen and focus on TRENDS! What do trends tell us?
“1. We cannot, with any meaningful confidence, forecast snowfall values 10+ days (or even a week!) out. Nailing down just the temperature forecast is difficult this far out, and snow in the south is delicate — requiring precision within a degree or two.
“2. It does look like we’re trending toward a very cold start to the New Year and the month of January. If these patterns hold and we see a pattern conducive to increased moisture in the Southeast, we could see conditions favorable for the development of wintry precipitation.