For much of Saturday, central North Carolina sat in envy as folks west and east of here got piles of snow.

The internet memes and jabs at local forecasters were plenty, while patience ran paper thin. 

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Why the "snow hole?"

Initially that morning, we thought we were looking at what's called a "dry slot."

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Technically, that wasn't correct. There were other forces at play that led to this gap in the radar display.

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We had an upper level system dumping snow on Tennessee and the western half of North Carolina. We had a coastal low which was in the process of forming, dumping snow east of I-95.

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Low pressure leads to rising air and - in this case - was transporting moisture to both sides of the state.

In between the two, there was "subsidence" or sinking air.

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The pressure difference between the two was such that air was going toward the lows on either side of us, diverging at the surface and leaving us void of any meaningful precipitation.

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It wasn't until the bottom of the ninth that the closer came in and shut things down.

Radar showed the snow hole finally closing after sunset, allowing a wider footprint of the area to get in on the snow action. 

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Because of this, snow totals ranged between 2 and 10 inches across our area, while a historic snow took place in other parts of the state.