ATLANTA — As millions gear up for the first major winter storm of the year, forecast models remain in generally good agreement, showing snow, ice, rain and sleet stretching from the southern Plains into the Mid-Atlantic. As of Wednesday, some of the more reliable models, including the European, had shifted slightly north, a change that could bring greater impacts to the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and Ohio Valley, and even the Northeast.
However, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said in its Wednesday discussion, “This trend really has little to no impact on the fact that a widespread and significant winter storm is going to occur … but it does play a big factor in exactly where the rain, ice and snow lines set up.”
There is still plenty of time for the models to shift the storm farther south. The Weather Prediction Center noted in its discussion that models often struggle with the storm’s northern and southern components this far in advance — especially the northern piece, which remains in Canada.
The WPC wrote, “Thus we tend to think that the unanimous model trend could be a slight mirage and suggests more confidence in a solution than there actually is at this point. Either way, it should be stressed that in just about every outcome we get a widespread and major winter storm, with many areas seeing significant impacts regardless of these exact details.”…