Weather Update – Monday January 20, 2025

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Once again our weather blog is proudly sponsored by Freedom Insurance of Whiteville. They are located at the Hills shopping plaza on the south end of town, across from Lowe’s. Outstanding customer service is taken very seriously at Freedom, and their team of trained experts will be glad to meet all of your insurance needs. If you need coverage for that slick new sports car, or you’re renting a nice apartment, or perhaps you need to insure that new ATV so you can go play in the snow we’re not going to get… contact Freedom TODAY and their team of professionals will get you set up with all that you need.

Two things to talk about in today’s report: Cold temperatures… and two bites at the apple for wintry precipitation.

Truthfully, and I said this I believe Thursday or Friday last week, the cold is going to be the bigger issue in this week’s weather.

The National Weather Service has issued a “Cold Weather Advisory” for tonight into Tuesday morning… wind chills 5 to 10 above zero are expected.

Folks, take this seriously. It has already been a cold January, but now we’re starting to experience the main event. It’s important to remember the Four P’s: People, pets, pipes, and plants.

PEOPLE: Keep your family warm and check on any elderly family or neighbors who may need extra blankets, winterizing their home, or a warm place to stay.

PETS: Dogs and cats get cold, too. Bring them inside at night to keep them healthy and safe. If it’s too cold for you, it’s too cold for them.

PIPES: Cover exposed pipes to prevent freezing and breaks. Leave your water dripping to keep water flowing through the pipes.

PLANTS: Cover/protect plants that may be susceptible to the extreme cold.

Actual air temperatures early Tuesday morning should be between 16 and 20, with wind chills, again, from 5 to 10 above zero.

Cold weather will continue through the week. We will drop below freezing around sunset this evening, and probably not rise above freezing again until sometime Thursday afternoon.

Hang in there… model guidance suggests a remarkable (and perhaps sustained) return to more seasonable temperatures (if not above) by next weekend.

Well… if you’re a snow lover… this is going in the wrong way very rapidly. So let’s just rip the Band Aid off and do this now.

I said (numerous times) that the low pressure center had to thread a needle just perfectly for us to get a decent snowfall here. Christmas 1989 remains the World Heavyweight Champion with regards to conditions being picture-perfect. The championship reign is in no danger of coming to an end.

I mentioned several times that there was the potential that we don’t get much of anything from this system. That, too, still remains a distinct possibility.

Alas… the social Meteorologists that posted the bright colorful screenshots the other day are suddenly nowhere to be found.

At any rate, there is STILL a maddening level of uncertainty with regard to the guidance. There are still a few outliers keeping higher snow accumulations in the area, but the south-and-east trend has been the rule now since yesterday.

So what’s going on? Arctic high pressure pushing southward from Canada over most of the central and eastern United States. This high pressure is STRONG, seriously strong, and is pushing very dense, cold, DRY air into the Carolinas, as seen on the graphic attached to the post. Cold air is far more dense (heavy) than warm air and is extremely difficult to “scour out” — you have to have quite the impressive storm system to do that.

Sadly, places like New Orleans are going to get the snow. And a good bit of it, too. Shovelable snow along the northern Gulf coast and perhaps into the Florida panhandle.

But not here.

At any rate, our storm pushes off the Georgia coast and still makes a run up the coastline… but all indications are that it’s going to be just far enough off the coast that our impacts are relatively light. AS OF THIS WRITING we should still get SOME moisture from this system, and even an inch or two of snow can make secondary roads extremely dangerous Wednesday morning.

Push the system another 50 miles to the east, though, and we end up with clear skies, frigid temperatures, and a bare ground come Wednesday morning. If the storm tracks 50 miles closer to the coast, then we pick up a good 4-7 inches of snow.

If you were looking for a “memorable” snow event, I’m sorry. It’s still not out of the running… NWS charts, as of 2 AM, had a “one-in-ten” chance of Whiteville receiving 7-9 inches of snow. While that definitely would be memorable, I don’t see that happening.

My snowfall forecast map is attached. It has been tweaked a little bit given the impressive dry air in place. I believe, AS OF THIS WRITING, we’ll still get around an inch to perhaps 2 inches of snow in Columbus County. I put route 701 is kind of the demarcation line… I believe east of 701 has a better chance of 1-2 inches, while west of 701 to the Robeson County line, around an inch can be expected. There will likely be a very sharp cut-off line to our west… get west of I-95 and there probably won’t be much of anything. Some spots closer to the beaches might get as much as 3 inches of snow, but I’m skeptical. The better chance for 3-inch snow amounts are farther north and east, from Jacksonville to New Bern and Bayboro.

My confidence in the snow forecast is still fairly limited and there’s a decent “bust” potential.

That’s all gone by Wednesday, and we’re left with just a cold, dry day with highs running a good 20-25 degrees below normal. Lows early Thursday will once again be in the lower to middle teens. PLEASE make sure those kids are dressed appropriately at the bus stop.

Take a short breath and our next system brings wintry precipitation into our area Thursday afternoon into Thursday night. A frontal boundary will be lingering just offshore after our first storm system pulls away. Low pressure is expected to spin up on this front and lift northward, and with a healthy supply of moisture, throwing a mixed bag of nuts across the area. As of right now, I’m going with a relatively “limited” chance for all precip types for ColCo on Thursday afternoon — snow, sleet, freezing rain. Better chances for icy conditions, as it stands now, exist near the coast… Brunswick and New Hanover counties. Again, get west of the 95, nada.

That moves out … and a precipitation-free weekend looks to be on tap with, again, temperatures returning back to normal. Super-long-range “for entertainment purposes only” scrolling (trolling?) of the GFS shows some possible rainy systems toward the end of the month.

All right, friends, that’ll do it. Again be leery of some of the no-name “authority” weather pages on social media, especially if they post things that seem too good to be true.

Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting my sponsor, Freedom Insurance, and as always, take care.

~Meteorologist Christopher Cawley