In the small city of New Bern, N.C., where lanterns illuminate regal, red-bricked streets, residents are used to the drudgery of storm prep, picking up sandbags and battery packs at Mitchell Hardware, feeling gloomy about another round of severe weather along the state’s hurricane-weary coastline.
But this week, Karen Pike, an employee at the store, noticed that residents in the city of about 31,000 were preparing for a storm with a pep in their step. Snow, perhaps a lot of it, was heading toward the beaches of the Carolinas, and customers needed their sleds. Perhaps a shovel, too.
“We’re keeping a tally of when people come in,” Ms. Pike said. “Do they want a shovel, do they want a sled, do they want salt, or do they want a heater?”
Sleds were in the lead on Friday, but the answer was “all of the above” for many people, and for good reason. For the second weekend in a row, Arctic temperatures will blast much of the country and bring snow to beach towns, where officials have warned residents about blizzardlike conditions, strong winds and possible power outages.
Even so, there was excitement about the latest burst of unusual wintry weather. Gov. Josh Stein of North Carolina opened his news conference on Friday by telling residents that if they were “disappointed by how few snowflakes fell this past weekend, I have some good news.”
“If you’re tired of winter weather,” he added, “some bad news.”
On some stretches of the East Coast, meteorologists said, conditions could escalate into a full-blown blizzard.
A Year’s Snow in a Day
Unlike the sprawling system that paralyzed a huge stretch of the country from the southern Rockies to New England last week, this storm is a more focused threat to the East Coast. It carries the potential to lash the Northeast with strong winds and additional snow, but its primary target appears to be the coastal areas of the Carolinas, where significant, and possibly historic, amounts of snow could fall.
Alex Lamers, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center, said some places could measure totals on Saturday that are more than they receive in an entire year. “This amount of snow from one storm is quite unusual for them,” he said.
As of Friday morning, the heaviest accumulations are projected to fall northeast of Atlanta and toward South Carolina. However, meteorologists cautioned that a slight shift in the storm’s track could bring an inch or more of snow directly into Atlanta’s central corridors on Saturday. There’s also a small chance of no snow in the city. Charlotte, N.C., could easily get a half a foot, and maybe even up to a foot, of snow.
The storm will move into the Northeast on Sunday, and while some forecasts this week had teased the possibility of heavy snow there, by Friday, snow was becoming less likely in places like Philadelphia, Washington and New York City. The highest probability for accumulation sits east and northeast of New York City, across Long Island, Connecticut, Cape Cod and toward Boston. Regardless of the snow totals, blustery winds will be universal.
Along North Carolina’s coast, many people appeared to be taking the forecast seriously on Friday. In Wilmington, N.C., Walmart stores were filled with shoppers pushing carts stacked with water and canned goods. Frozen pizzas and cases of beer were piled high. Hardware stores tried to keep up with a rush of orders that had not slowed since last week.
At Bame Ace Hardware in Carolina Beach, N.C., an 18-wheeler was delivering more inventory to Bennet Bame, whose family has run the store for three generations.
“Truthfully, we’re out of pretty much everything,” he said, surrounded by shelves empty of heaters, pipe insulation and almost all kinds of salt. There was still some pool salt left over.
In recent years, many New Yorkers have moved to the area, which has one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. On Friday, Mr. Bame, a self-described “old-school Southerner” averse to the cold, overheard a man with a New York accent in his shop. “You can take this cold right back to where you came from!” Mr. Bame joked with the man.
While Southern snow typically melts when it hits warm ground, days of Arctic air have chilled the surface. So any snow is expected to accumulate on contact, covering roads almost immediately.
The nature of the snow will complicate the weekend as well. While the South is used to wet snow — the heavy, sticky kind that’s perfect for snowballs — this storm is expected to produce dry snow.
Because of its low density, dry snow is more prone to being blown around, which can significantly reduce visibility, even with light accumulation. Its fluffiness also means it can pile up higher than wet snow from the same amount of moisture.
“This storm is one that people in locations like the Cape in North Carolina haven’t seen in quite a while,” Rachel Zouzias, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., said on Thursday. She noted there were early indications that the system could mirror one in 1989 that dumped more than a foot of snow on the region and set records that still have not been broken.
The winter weather also comes as some parts of the country are still struggling to fully recover from snow and ice last weekend. In Nashville, thousands of residents have been without power or heat for nearly a week, with fears about finding warm, affordable housing and food increasing across the city.
As of Friday morning, Nashville Electric Service said there were around 70,000 customers still without power. The service’s struggle to communicate a timeline for restoring power citywide further raised frustrations, even from Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who said he expected the service “to better communicate” with the city’s residents.
In South Carolina, which also struggled with power outages last week, the storm was expected to once again blanket the state in frigid temperatures, especially in the Upstate region, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg.
Amy Wright, an accountant in Greenville, S.C., had written down her shopping list on Friday to prepare for the possibility of losing power and hunkering down with her two children.
“I’m trying to plan out meals so that we have what we need,” she said. “And I’m buying all sorts of junk for the kids.”
Victor Gardner, a 68-year-old retired lineman for Duke Energy, a major power company in the Carolinas, was also stocking up on groceries. “You can’t control” the weather, he said.
But there was one thing in his control, and out of mind. He would no longer get ready to be dispatched to utility lines in need of repair. Now, he was only focused on picking the right bag of ripe oranges, and a packet of hot dogs.
Kevin Maurer contributed reporting from Wilmington, N.C., and Nick Madigan contributed reporting from Greenville, S.C.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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