Get ready for a roller-coaster ride of temperatures in NC — but still no snow
This year’s snowless winter throughout much of North Carolina is likely to continue even though temperatures this weekend are dipping below freezing.
Despite temperatures in the 20s in Charlotte on Saturday and in the Triangle on both Saturday and Sunday, no local weather forecasts are predicting the chance of snow.
Both Charlotte and the Triangle are expected to warm up into the 60s by Monday, which many people have off work for President’s Day. There’s also not much chance of rain then, according to forecasts from ABC 11 in the Triangle and WBTV in Charlotte, although both areas could see some rain Tuesday or later in the week.
WBTV wrote on Friday that the weather is likely to keep on toggling between freezing and pleasant temperatures. Chief Meteorologist Eric Thomas wrote, “up and down temperature swings will continue for the foreseeable future, so don’t get too comfortable.”
In Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill it has been over a year since snow was last on the ground, according to local TV station CBS 17, which wrote on Friday that it hasn’t snowed since Dec. 9-10 of 2018. It’s shaping to be a historic year if that trend keeps up. (Charlotte had a brief period of snow two weeks ago, but it didn’t stick to the ground.)
“The Triangle has never had a snow-free winter since records began back in 1887,” CBS 17 meteorologist Wes Hohenstein wrote Friday.
The Triangle, like Charlotte, also appears to be in store for temperatures to keep swinging back and forth. It’s expected to warm up early next week before dipping back into the 20s Thursday and Friday, according to ABC 11 meteorologist Steve Stewart.
He wrote Saturday that a cold front could potentially bring some wetter weather to central North Carolina then, too, but it’s still too far away to know for certain.
“We will have to continue to monitor just how far south the front gets to see if there could be some showers or a wintry mix on Thursday or Thursday night,” Stewart said.
The warmer-than-usual winter in North Carolina is in keeping with wider trends.
According to federal data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last January was the hottest January in recorded history. And although the data goes back to the 1800s, all 10 of the hottest Januaries on record have happened since 2002, NOAA said.
And it’s not just North Carolina that’s missing snow. According to NOAA, snow coverage for the entire northern hemisphere has been below average this year, and the polar ice caps in both the arctic and antarctic are at some of their lowest levels of the last four decades.
