Winter storm could strike area Monday

There might not be anything pretty about the winter storm system predicted to affect the Charlotte area at the beginning of next week.

In fact, we might be dealing with the much-dreaded mixed bag of precipitation that includes ice on Monday.

A huge dome of polar air that dropped temperatures to near minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit last week in Siberia is expected to send a piece of that system crashing into Canada and the United States over the next few days.

Over the next two weeks, additional pieces of that incredibly cold air are forecast to move into the United States.

With cold air in place early next week, a low pressure system is predicted to form in the western Gulf of Mexico, move along the Gulf Coast, and then swing up the East Coast early next week. The Charlotte area would be on the cold side of that system, which means wintry precipitation.

The last time, temperatures in Charlotte were above freezing when the storm arrived, so the precipitation fell as rain for a few hours on Christmas Day, until the atmosphere cooled sufficiently and the rain changed to snow.

It's still four days from the arrival of the storm system, but meteorologists say the computer models are indicating layers of air that are above and below freezing. Specifically, some of the models (including the 6Z GFS) show a layer of warm air above a layer of freezing temperatures near the ground. That would support sleet or freezing rain.

People disagree about snow. Some folks like it, some don't.

There's no disagreement about sleet and freezing rain. Everyone hates it. Sleet turns roads into ice rinks. Freezing rain knocks out power.

Mike Dross, a meteorologist who used to work for Duke Energy and now puts his forecasting skills to use with the energy industry in Houston, says he sees a scenario where some parts of the Charlotte area receive 1/4 inch of ice. That's enough for power outages.

"This will probably change with future (computer model) runs," Dross says, but he adds that the freezing rain-sleet forecast is what the computers are projecting now.

And this might be just the start of a stretch of bad weather. Temperatures seem likely to remain below average for a week or more, so if any other low pressure systems develop in the Gulf, they could bring more trouble to the Charlotte area.