‘Snow drought’ grips North Carolina during record-breaking warm winter, forecasters say
If you’re hoping for snow in the Raleigh area this winter, weather officials have some bad news.
Raleigh hasn’t seen measurable snow since December 2018, Phil Badgett, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Raleigh office, told McClatchy News.
There have been a few flurries in the air or a few flakes on the ground since then, but nothing that gave way to a snowball fight or warranted a day off work.
Having a snow-less winter is out of the ordinary for this area, Badgett says, but it does happen.
The Raleigh area averages 7.9 inches of snow each year, Badgett said, and the last time there wasn’t measurable snow was the winter of 2007-2008.
But it’s not just the Raleigh area that’s in what weather officials call a “snow drought” this winter, Badgett says. All of North Carolina and the entire East Coast have seen significantly less snow than in a normal year.
In the mountains, Boone averages 42 inches of snow each winter, Badgett says. This year it’s had 8 inches.
The lack of snow is partly due to the unusually warm temperatures the area has seen.
This is the warmest winter the National Weather Service has recorded since 1887, Badgett told McClatchy News. It’s on track to be in the top five warmest winters overall.
Temperatures are also averaging 6 degrees above normal, and there have been few cooler-than-normal days, making snow chances slim, Badgett says.
And with winter ending soon, the window for snow chances is closing.
Typically March 1 is the cutoff for the possibility of seeing a major winter storm in the area, Badgett says. However, it could snow up until about April 1.
But the warm and wet winter that the southeast has been seeing is expected to continue for about three more weeks, into the beginning of March, Badgett says. A cold front could bring a few colder days between now and then.
So snow isn’t out of the question, he said, but it’s not looking great.
Even if it did snow it would be “fleeting,” as temperatures aren’t consistently cold enough for it to last.
This story was originally published February 10, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
