Severe Weather Team 9 continues to track a high impact winter storm that will move into the Carolinas this weekend with ice accumulations of up to 0.60 inch. As of Thursday afternoon, the entire area is under a winter storm watch for the weekend. This watch will get upgraded to a warning as the event gets closer.
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As our higher-resolution model guidance comes in, we’re getting a clearer picture for the start time of the event.
Precipitation is forecast to move in Saturday afternoon and spread over the area overnight.
For areas north of I-40, this will start off as snow.
For the rest of the area, this will likely start as sleet.
As we go overnight and into Sunday, we’ll watch as warm air through the middle of the atmosphere moves in. We call this a warm nose. The strength of that warm nose will determine how much sleet we get versus when we transition to freezing rain.
Currently, the expectation is for areas north of I-40 to transition from snow to a mix of sleet and freezing rain through Sunday.
For the Charlotte metro area, sleet at onset will transition to mostly freezing rain throughout the event. Ice accumulations between 0.25 to 0.60 inch are possible and would not only cause widespread issues on area roadways but will lead to power outage concerns throughout the weekend and early next week.
While precipitation will taper off Sunday night, temperatures stay well-below freezing for much of the day Monday and Tuesday. That means anything that falls through the weekend will stay frozen for an extended period of time. We’ll need to watch for issues with frozen pipes as well given the length of time we stay below freezing.
You can find the latest forecasts for the winter storm on the WSOC-TV Weather App. You can also track the storm in real time on the app with interactive radar as we go through the weekend.
VIDEO: Thursday afternoon’s forecast with Meteorologist Danielle Miller
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