Accumulating snow fell all across North Carolina last weekend in our most widespread wintry event in more than a dozen years, and the biggest snow for some areas in several decades.
While this event had a classic Carolina snowstorm setup, it was anything but a garden variety winter storm, following an ideal pattern for significant and wide-reaching snowfall:
- An Arctic front earlier in the week kept a deep layer of cold air locked in, and surface temperatures were largely in the 10s on Saturday. That ensured precipitation fell as all snow, rather than fighting through our typical precipitation type transitions as in the previous weekend’s event.
- A deepening upper-level low tracking over western North Carolina supported snow in the Mountains and western Piedmont, while also amplifying a developing surface low.
- That offshore low pressure system followed the near-shore track that’s favorable for big snows across central and eastern North Carolina, and even our immediate coastline was cold enough for significant accumulations.
The result was our first event with measurable snow in all 100 counties since January 2014, and more than a foot falling in parts of the state. This recap takes a region-by-region look at the storm and its impacts, from a solid snow for the Mountains to mixed fortunes in the Piedmont to extreme conditions in the Coastal Plain.
Mountain Amounts
While our western counties are more accustomed to seeing snowfall than the rest of the state, big snows have not been common there in recent years. The latest six-inch snow event across much of the region was more than four years ago, in mid-January 2022.
Some mountain areas snapped that slump in this event, with 6.0 inches in Lenoir, 6.5 inches in Forest City, and 8.0 inches in Marshall. The NWS Cooperative Observer site in Boone officially recorded 3.0 inches of snow on Saturday, but other parts of Watauga County had more than a foot, with 13.3 inches on Beech Mountain.
Those areas have been mired in a frigid stretch. As of this post’s publication, Boone hasn’t been above freezing in more than seven days, since the early morning hours on Monday, January 26. That’s the longest sub-freezing streak there since January 2018.
While Asheville had one of the lower regional totals with 4.0 inches at the airport, that was still more than twice its total snowfall from the entire 2024-25 winter, when it received only 1.9 inches. Snowfall reports showed up to 6 inches in downtown Asheville with higher totals in western Buncombe County, including 10.8 inches in Leicester and 8.7 inches in Candler.
Elsewhere in western North Carolina, CoCoRaHS observers reported 8 to 10 inches in Waynesville, 9.5 inches near Sparta, and 10.3 inches in Little Switzerland. Even farther west, the Cataloochee Ski Area in Haywood County received 9 inches of new snow in this event.
Piedmont Powder
For all of its bad snow luck in recent years – including a record 1,076-day snow drought and a number of events eroded by a wintry mix – Charlotte finally landed a big snow last weekend. The airport reported 23 consecutive hours with snow falling and a total of 11.4 inches, which was the most there since February 26-27, 2004.
North of Charlotte, more than a foot of snow fell along the I-85 corridor in parts of Cabarrus, Rowan, Davidson, and Guilford counties. Within that swath of heavy snowfall, local reports showed up to 16 inches in both Kannapolis and Lexington, marking the highest totals in the Piedmont.
The Triad received 8 to 12 inches, including 10.3 inches at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro. This was the biggest snow there since December 2018, which also saw upwards of a foot in some spots.
On the flip side, Triangle residents could only watch as snow piled up to their east and west on Saturday, seeming to strategically avoid Durham and Wake counties. As hinted at by some forecasts, those areas were stuck in the dreaded dry slot – the confluence of sinking air between the two low-pressure areas on either end of the state.
Snow finally moved in by Saturday night, eventually totaling 2.8 inches in Raleigh — the city’s biggest snow since 8.9 inches on December 8 and 9, 2018. However, south Raleigh and nearby Garner received as little as 1.5 inches, which was the least snow in the entire state.
A Coastal Crusher
For parts of eastern North Carolina, this was the snowstorm of a lifetime. More than a foot fell over the central Coastal Plain, surpassing every other wintry event so far this century.
The 12.5 inches in New Bern and 15 inches in Newport made this the first foot of snow for both areas since December 1989. The highest totals in the state came along the Crystal Coast, including 19.5 inches in Peletier and 17 inches in Swansboro.
Nearby Cape Carteret observed near whiteout conditions on Saturday, and the weather bordered on blizzard criteria, with Beaufort reporting the requisite three consecutive hours with visibility of a quarter-mile or less, wind gusts of 35 mph or greater, and heavy snow falling or blowing.
For some areas farther inland, this was the biggest snow since the March 1980 blockbuster. CoCoRaHS observers reported up to 15 inches in Kinston and 14 inches in Greenville after last weekend’s storm, and the Cooperative Observer site in Gum Neck tallied 16.1 inches.
Most remarkably, along the Pamlico River in Beaufort County, this was the first foot of snow in more than 67 years, since December 1958. In that region, reported totals included 17 inches in Bath, 15 inches in Bayview, and 13 inches in Belhaven.
Along with having a strong, moisture-laden low pressure system just offshore, a key factor in ramping up the snowfall amounts was the cold air that created unusually high snow-to-liquid ratios for this part of the country. While Wilmington only measured 0.32 inches of liquid precipitation, that yielded 5.8 inches of fluffy snow – the heaviest snow there since 1989 – at an impressive 18-to-1 ratio.
That’s one of many exceptional aspects of this historic snowstorm. And while the snow, which piled in drifts up to 50 inches deep, will stick around for days if not weeks, the memories of this major event will last even longer.
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