Heavy Snow, Intense Cold To Slam the Southeast US This Weekend

A rare, high-impact winter storm is set to hit the Southeast late Friday into Sunday, with accumulating snow reaching far beyond the Appalachians.

Cold air is already dug in, and a developing low will ride the temperature boundary from Georgia into the Carolinas, setting up a broad swath of snow and a tight gradient that runs through big cities.

This setup works because the atmosphere stays cold from the surface up, so precipitation falls mainly as snow across the storm footprint.

Energy sliding out of the Deep South helps spin up a surface low, and once that low organizes near the coast, it throws a classic comma head of moisture back into the cold air. Snow ratios could climb as high as 20:1, which is extremely light for latitudes this far south.

In the Carolinas, Charlotte is in for a 4 to 7 inch storm, and that same 4 to 7 inch range covers the Upstate through Greenville and Spartanburg.

Asheville and the North Carolina mountains are looking at 5 to 8 inches with gusts up to 50 mph. Closer to the Tennessee border, some high elevations also face sleet and significant ice. South Carolina’s Midlands are in the thick of it, too: Columbia sits in the 5 to 8 inch zone, and the Augusta area is in a 3 to 6 inch forecast.

On the coast, Wilmington and Myrtle Beach are forecast for 5 to 8 inches, and Charleston is in the 3 to 5 inch range (a rare mix of palm shadows and snowplow berms!). 

Eastern North Carolina runs higher. A large block of the counties around Greenville, New Bern, and Jacksonville is forecast for 6 to 10 inches, and the Washington to Beaufort to Hyde slice is 7 to 11. 

The Northern Outer Banks sits at 8 to 12 inches with winds gusting 50 to 60 mph.

Even without as much accumulating snow, impacts will be felt south of the main storm track.

Savannah leans toward a light snow event, with around an inch possible as the system skims the coast, and nearby inland counties sit in a 1 to 4 inch watch range.

Florida lands in the cold, windy backside of the storm even without accumulating snow. Along the Panhandle beaches near Panama City, strong northwest winds with gusts up to about 40 mph will bring dangerously cold wind chills in the teens.

Tallahassee looks dry, but Saturday night drops into the low 20s with wind chills around 10 degrees!