What a bizarre storm that just blew through...we came out with possibly the best of solutions after a night of thick icing when the warm nose overwhelmed us with temps rising into the lower 50s in the afternoon. The heavy rain dispelled the ice and we were back to normal roads, decks, and stairs. (Click on all pics to enlarge).
However...that warm nose slammed on the brakes just NE of us. AVL airport sat in the upper 20s while we 'basked', relatively. At one point, Hendersonville was 31 degrees colder than Waynesville. Locations along the Blue Ridge Escarpment stayed in freezing territory as that wall of water came through, with strong winds, and they fared far worse with copious power outages still in place. Roads in central NC are treacherous with travel not advised for now. Click HERE to see the up to date interactive power outage map from Duke Energy.
We call it CAD for "cold air damming". Consider the geography of NC, with the Appalachian Mountains serving as the edge of a tub...cold dense air moves in from the NE and fills the 'tub', which is why locations on the escarpment and points east fared far worse.
We have a lot to be thankful for, even with our 2-3 hour power outage yesterday.
The incoming arctic air has been slow to arrive, but we saw our Monday high whatever we had at midnight, and today will be in the deep freeze. As I type, the NW winds haven't picked up much, but they will, and power outages are not out of the question.
What we also have is a light coating of extremely fine snow, which we'll have blowing in for a bit today. Light is the operative word...any warnings we have are for the bitterly cold temperatures and windchills, with our coldest night of the season tonight. I saw the 'expected snow' which had us at zero, so this 'high end' map is actually what is happening. Tonight, I expect to give zero degrees a run for the money, if not slightly in the negative. Winds will have to have died down to get the lowest reading, but that's not a contest I care to win. Anything that is sticking is staying for a while.
Click HERE for the latest public information statement on sleet and ice totals around the region. Click HERE for all of the cold weather warnings, etc.
Bob
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