For those of you wondering what happened to the 7 to 8 inch snow totals, look no further than the picture above! A massive dry slot fed into this system, and really shut off the precipitation across the River Valley and portions of NW AR during the morning and early afternoon, eliminating the potential for major snow accumulations.

The ETA model didn't pick up on the dry air; the GFS did, and that's why we sided with that particular solution. The GFS has been more consistent over the last month with the larger winter systems, so we put our trust in that model. Sometimes forecasting comes down to one decision: what model do I go with?

Notice Benton, Delaware, and McDonald counties weren’t influenced by the dry slot, so more totals were reported in those spots. Those locations also had temperatures in the low levels of the atmosphere that supported snow.