For some reason, some people here in the South are fascinated with snow. I'm not one of them. I guess it’s because we don’t get it that often, but I don’t understand why people wish for it so much.
One weather forecasting computer model has people in a major tizzy over the possibility of snow in Georgia and Florida. Check out this post on the Instagram account GaFollowersOfficial:
And then there’s this even more implausible Facebook post from the Disney clickbait site Streaming the Magic:
People are losing their minds over the possibility of snow in a couple of weeks. Some people are holding onto hope despite having those hopes dashed too many times in the past.
The forecast of frigid weather is pretty much the consensus for the middle of January 2025 in Georgia, and I presume it’ll be colder than normal in Florida as well. The problem with all of this is that these computer models can vary widely when you’re looking at anything beyond a week out.
The forecasting models constantly change as well. Atlanta meteorologist Ella Dorsey of WANF commented on that Instagram post that the heavy snow forecast “is just one run of the euro model. The next run showed .2” snow for the same time period (Jan 8-12). It will definitely be cold enough, but still WAY too far out to have any idea about snow.” (You may remember Dorsey as the meteorologist who received death threats when her news station broke into coverage of The Masters to report on tornado warnings in North Georgia.)
Related: Atlanta's 'Snowpocalypse': 10 Years Ago This Weekend
Another meteorologist, WSB’s Christina Edwards, is trying to put what she calls “wishcasting” to rest and throw a bit of realism into the mix. On Sunday, she explained on Facebook that the same model that showed snow in a couple of weeks showed no snow in a later run and is likely to change multiple times as the days pass.
“The point is, the pattern is setting up for bitterly cold air to move into the Southeast next week (Jan 6-12), with temps trending 20 degrees below average (highs in the 30s, lows in the 10s),” she wrote. “But frozen precip. forecasting in the South is VERY unreliable until about 5 days out.”
She encouraged her readers to “hold off on the ‘wish-casting’ until the week of Jan 6, please! You'll only get your hopes up, and you'll ‘enjoy’ frozen sunshine instead!”
In another post on Monday, Edwards explained again that snow forecasting isn’t something she takes lightly:
Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist and professor at the University of Georgia, wrote in his column on Forbes.com about how this reliance on too-early forecasting “plays on the snow lover’s desire, and the social media culture rooted in clicks, views, or shares.” Yet people who really, really, really want snow will latch onto these way-too-early forecasts and blame the meteorologists who urge caution if these scenarios don’t pan out.
“Confirmation bias and ‘wishcasting’ are powerful motivators if you want to believe that a snow scenario is possible,” Shepherd noted. However, he added, “…it is as real as the irrational overload on French toast ingredients purchased at the very mention of snow in the South.”
Will we get snow in a couple of weeks in the South? Maybe, maybe not. We’re sure to get some disgustingly cold weather, but we won’t know about snow until those days get closer.
I don’t want any snow, much less a foot of it, but I understand the desire of some people to see some white stuff on the ground. My advice to those of you who are wishing, hoping, or praying for snow is this: Don’t put your hopes in a forecast that’s way too early to be accurate. Meteorologists know what they’re doing, and if the more reliable models show frozen precipitation in the forecast, they’ll let you know when to make that run on milk and bread.
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