JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Old man winter has arrived, and will stay all week.
It will possibly be our coldest week since January of 2010, and forecast models are suggesting that on Wednesday afternoon, parts of Jacksonville, mainly north and west of the downtown could see some snow flurries.
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The setup is classic for a possible snow event for Southeast Georgia and a snow flurry for Jax.
We are dealing with an Arctic blast settling in for the entire week. Each day's high temperature will run 20-30° below normal with back-to-back freezes each night.
NWS watches, warnings, winter weather forecast
The snow-maker could depend on how close a developing gale gets to Florida. A storm is expected to develop north of the Bahamas sending rain our way Wednesday. But the cold air may be just deep enough to allow for snow on the back edge of the rain. Best locations will be in southern Georgia around Waycross to Nahunta and near Brunswick, with some flurries in northern Florida, primarily north of I-10 and west of Nassau Counties.
Forecast models are NOT in agreement
And if you are hoping to see snow, this is not good. Only the NAM model seems interested in bringing snow or ice (freezing rain) or sleet to the area of Southern Georgia and a few flurries to Jacksonville. The other models, the GFS, EURO and RPM, are not linking enough cold air to the precipitation.
But stay strong, snow fans. The models are constantly updating and we will be updating this story as we close in on Wednesday, the day which will bring the best possible chance of snow flurries to Jacksonville in three years.
For the weather geeks out there, here's the Skew-T plot of the atmosphere around 1 p.m. Wednesday. Note: The diagonal line is the freezing line as you go up the atmosphere, left of it are temperatures below freezing, to the right are temperatures above freezing. The zig-zag blue line represents (loosely) the temperatures a snowflake would be falling though, and the blue line is to the right of the freezing line, that means falling snow would likely melt before reaching the ground.
Another very key temperature to watch is that of the surface temperature (your backyard) is 39° or less for any possible chance of snow, note in the Skew-t, the surface temperature is 41°, too high for snow.