A strong front will push through Western North Carolina beginning late Saturday. The initial precipitation will fall in the form of rainfall, and a half inch or so of rain will be possible. What has caught my eye though, is the amount of moisture that all three main global models bring through the area on the backside. As a low pressure bombs out off of the East Coast, ample moisture floods in off the Great Lakes and reaches the Appalachians with force. This Northwest flow snow has the potential to even push into locations around Asheville. Below you can see the most recent precipitation depiction from the GFS early Monday morning.
Several Models Showing Similar Solutions
Also you can see the European model, Canadian model, & German model during the same time period. Since these are all showing similar solutions, I felt that it was right to go ahead and mention the potential because it appears to be very possible at this point in time. Winds will pick up Sunday night and gust over 30mph in many locations as temperatures fall into the 20’s. That is a perfect recipe for Northwest flow snow to make it into the valleys north of I-40.
As you can see, moisture will move in from off of the Great Lakes, and enhanced flow will really create some strong bands of snow across the Tennessee Valley that eventually move into WNC. Whether this happens on Sunday night or Monday morning is still uncertain, but what does appear likely is accumulating snow above 3000’ in WNC.
What Will It Takes For Snowflakes To Make It To Asheville?
A recipe of surface winds above 20mph, 850mb level saturated, and 700mb winds above 50mph is needed for flakes to push close to Asheville. The first two are the most important, with the 700mb winds really coming into play when northwest flow snowflakes make it to Hendersonville and beyond. I will get a better idea of the extend of the flow in the coming days and will keep you updated.
What Is Driving This Flow?
A strong low pressure will move off of the East Coast and continue to strengthen. Air will begin to rush towards it in all levels of the atmosphere to balance it out (depicted in the image below). As that air reaches the NC Mountains, it is pushed upwards and naturally compresses. That compression induces condensation as the air is propelled into the atmosphere. In turn, cloud begin to form and precipitation falls in the highest elevations. Depending on how strong the winds are determines how far the snowflakes make it away from the NC/TN border. This even appears to bring winds gusting over 30mph Monday morning around Asheville, and that would be sufficient for snowflakes to be propelled out of the high elevations and fall around the city. I will have more updates on this moving forward, but for now enjoy Thanksgiving and have a great rest of the week!