Winter storm blankets all 100 NC counties in snow, both picturesque and problematic
A winter storm moved across North Carolina on Saturday, crowning the landscape from the mountains to the sea in powdery snow nearly two feet deep in places, but also leaving thousands without power or stranded on unnavigable roads.
High winds and heavy surf from the storm also caused another house to fall on the Outer Banks.
The storm was the result of the meeting of two major weather systems: cold air coming from north and west, and moisture from a low-pressure system that developed over the Atlantic.
The heaviest snowfall amounts were in the mountains, with 22.5 inches reported to the National Weather Service in the Madison County community of Faust.
But nearly the whole state got sleddable snow amounts: 4 to 10 inches in and around Charlotte, up to 13 inches around Greensboro, nearly 6 inches in parts of the Triangle and nearly 20 inches in some areas along the southern and central coast.
Sunday was the rare morning when all of North Carolina woke to the sight of fresh snow on the lawn — a white February stretching from Murphy to Manteo.
It almost never happens that college students in Boone or Asheville can swap snow-angel pictures with their mothers in Wilmington and New Bern, but this equal-opportunity nor’easter dumped measurable inches across all 100 counties.
The last time that occurred was in 2010, according to ABC 11 meteorologist Cruz Medina, recalling the storm that started on Christmas Eve and piled up 8 inches high in Raleigh and even deeper out toward Rocky Mount, making every parent wish they’d bought a sled.
Concerns about roads
Gov. Josh Stein urged North Carolinians on Sunday to stay cautious on the roads and in the cold, calling the storm “no joke,” while also saying he hoped many kids across the state took time to safely enjoy the rare snowfall.
During a virtual winter storm update, Stein said his key message was for people to stay off the roads so crews and law enforcement could work, noting that the state’s department of transportation had about 2,500 workers on overtime Sunday to clear as much snow as possible.
There were more than 1,000 traffic collisions statewide over the weekend, including two fatalities, as well as a major traffic jam involving more than 100 vehicles on Interstate 85 in Kannapolis, Stein said.
Most government offices remained closed Sunday with school districts expected to announce closings and delays for Monday for a second week of weather-related adjustments.
Snow on the coast
The coastal component brought tropical storm-force winds that generated excessive surf and caused flooding along N.C. Highway 12 on the Outer Banks, forcing closure of the road in places.
Around 7:30 a.m. Sunday — about an hour past high tide — the ocean finally brought down a house it had been battering for months. The house, named “Rejuvenate” by its owners in Iowa, had been the site of many gatherings in the neighborhood off Lighthouse Road.
Lat Williams, who with his wife, Debby, had a house moved off the oceanfront late last year to keep it from falling, said there were four houses on the waterfront still at risk of falling Saturday night as he went to bed. Sixteen houses fell into the ocean in Buxton in 2025 when erosion accelerated along the beachfront.
Around midnight Saturday, Williams said, the wind picked up, howling at about 50 mph. Sunday morning, the beating continued. When his neighbor’s house fell, Williams made the call to Rejuvenate’s owners.
“The first she said was, ‘Did it go down?’” Williams said. “I said, ‘Yeah,’ and she said there’s a little bit of grief and relief there. You’ve been on pins and needles for six months and now you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Williams walked the beach after the collapse looking for anything he might collect to save for his friend, but said, “It’s all just wreckage.”
Power outages and disruptions
At midday Sunday, Duke Energy reported more than 3,000 outages across North Carolina with the largest clusters in Charlotte and south and west of Asheville. Several hundred customers in Wilmington and Morehead City also were in the dark.
Beyond driving conditions, Stein said extreme cold — especially in Western North Carolina — is another concern.
Subfreezing temperatures could increase strain on the electrical grid Monday morning. He urged people to watch for signs of frostbite and to conserve electricity by turning off lights and avoiding major appliances.
The temperatures — 10 to 20 degrees below normal — are driving unusually high energy demand across the East Coast, including the Carolinas, said Duke Energy in a press release Monday.
Raleigh-Durham International Airport was spared the worst of Saturday’s winter storm, but airlines canceled dozens of flights Sunday. As of 10:30 a.m., 76 flights scheduled to arrive or depart RDU on Sunday had been canceled, according to FlightAware.
Morning departures were particularly affected. Most of the planes used on those flights normally arrive the night before, and many of those incoming flights were canceled because of the storm. Of the 47 flights scheduled to leave RDU before 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the airport’s busiest time of day, 35 were canceled.
Things looked better later in the day as the sun reappeared. Few flights scheduled after noon got scrubbed.
Nearly 3 inches of snow fell at RDU, according to the National Weather Service. That compares to 10.4 inches at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro and 11 inches at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where more than 800 flights have been canceled Sunday.
Near downtown, sled fans in the know all head for Oakwood Cemetery, which provides the steepest slopes and the most tolerant company. More than 50 sledders packed into the historic graveyard Sunday, taking the hills face-first, doubled-up with friends and even backward as parents howled, “Watch out! Watch out!”
“It’s very, very fast,” said Brittson Boise, a fourth-grader at Conn Elementary, “and I like it.” Sledders here don’t disturb any eternal rest. The sledding ground covers a flat field near the gate where Oakwood neighbors also gather for pig pickin’s and Easter egg rolls free of actual graves.
News & Observer staffers Josh Shaffer, Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi and Richard Stradling contributed.
This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 3:28 PM.
