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Answer: Climate records from the Raleigh-Durham airport do not show any snowfall in October, with the earliest trace of snow there reported on November 2nd, 1954, while the earliest measurable snow there was on November 6th, 1953, when .6" was recorded. A different station in Raleigh with a much longer period of record did record a trace of snow as early as October 24th, back in 1910.
Nov. 7, 2009 | Tags: past weather, records/extremes, snow

Answer: While not exactly the same in long-term averages, the two cities' weather with respect to the type of events you asked about are close enough that other considerations would probably be more important to you, thanks to something of a balance between Raleigh's more northerly latitude and Charlotte's more westerly longitude. In terms of winter weather, both cities average about 4-5 "snowfall events" and about 4-6 "sleet and freezing rain events" per year, with some overlap between those two sets of numbers due to the tendency for winter storms here to produce multiple and rather variable precipitation types. Raleigh averages a little more snow overall, at 7.6" annually versus 5.8" for Charlotte. Thunderstorm days for the region run about 40-50 per year, with Charlotte averaging about 2-3 more days than Raleigh. Most of this information is summarized in various portions of the State Climate Office web site at www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu.
Nov. 1, 2009 | Tags: cool sites, normals, snow, thunderstorms

Answer: In many cases, the droplets of water that make up rain were at some point in their development snow or ice, created in clouds that are a mixture of ice crystals and supercooled water droplets, with the frozen particles later melting as they fall through warmer air on their way to the ground. However, there are also "warm rain" processes that are able to produce precipitation via the growth of liquid droplets that never become cold enough to freeze. The most common such mechanism is known as "collision-coalescence."
Jul. 23, 2009 | Tags: rain, snow

Answer: The symbols highlight areas of heavier rain, strong wind potential, snow, possible tornadoes, lightning and so on. Most symbols will provide an arrow indicating the speed and direction of movement when you hover the mouse pointer over them, and more information if you left-click on the symbol. You can see an icon legend for iControl at content.myweather.net/iradar/more_help_future.html.
Apr. 27, 2009 | Tags: snow, tornadoes, winds, winter weather

Answer: It didn't snow toward the middle of that month, but there was a tremendous snowstorm that affected much of North Carolina March 1-3 as an intense nor'easter moved out of the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeastern U.S. coast. During that storm, Fayetteville reported 24 inches of snow, Enfield 25 inches, and there is a report of 31 inches from the Nashville area.
Apr. 17, 2009 | Tags: snow, winter weather

Answer: At the Raleigh-Durham airport, the winter season for 2008-09 (December-February) ended up with an average temperature of 44.4 degrees. This is about 2.6 degrees above normal. During the same period, precipitation totaled 7.24 inches, which is 3.29 inches below normal or about 69 percent of normal, with 3.5 inches of snow recorded.
Apr. 11, 2009 | Tags: normals, snow, winter weather

Answer: There are a couple of good locations to find those record values for each day of the year. The Raleigh National Weather Service office provides one link at www.erh.noaa.gov/rah/climate/data/rdu.daily.records.temp.precip.snow.html, and you can find similar information from the Southeast Regional Climate Center at www.sercc.com/cgi-bin/sercc/cliRECt.pl?nc7069.
Mar. 30, 2009 | Tags: preparedness, snow, winter weather

Answer: He is probably referring to the white line that marks the direction and distance that our Dual Doppler 5000 radar is sweeping. The line shows which way the radar dish is pointing and thus the direction in which the radar beam is being transmitted. It sweeps through a full circle in about 45-75 seconds, and if you watch closely you can see the radar echoes update as it passes over.
Mar. 15, 2009 | Tags: snow, winter weather

Answer: When snow is measured at a reporting station, an attempt is made to convert the snow into a "liquid equivalent" amount of precipitation. A typical ratio of snow to liquid is around ten to one, though it can vary a good deal. The liquid equivalent from snowfall events is added to rainfall amounts in calculating total precipitation, and so does enter into drought assessments.
Mar. 7, 2009 | Tags: drought, snow, winter weather

Answer: The snowstorm you're asking about occurred over the period of January 24th and 25th. Total liquid equivalent precipitation for those two days at RDU was estimated at 2.37 inches, with total snowfall of 20.3 inches. There was light rain at the beginning of the event that accounted for about .02 inches, leaving the final average ratio of snow to liquid at about 8.6 to 1.
Mar. 7, 2009 | Tags: snow, winter weather