Why wasn’t the Triangle’s winter storm worse? There’s one big reason
The Triangle woke Sunday morning to an underwhelming winter storm: an inch or so on the ground after expecting crippling snow up to the knees.
The reason for dodging an icy bullet boils down to a single word:
Sleet.
“I talked about it last week — if this gets to be sleet, it will save us,” said Don “Big Weather” Schwenneker, chief meteorologist for ABC 11. “Sleet balls, they bounce off things and they stick to stuff, but they don’t accumulate.”
Sleet, snow or freezing rain
Freezing rain might have doomed the Triangle.
Unlike sleet, it stays liquid until it hits the ground, which is so cold it immediately freezes. A half-inch of rain, which is roughly what Saturday night’s storm delivered, makes about a half-inch of ice.
Snow, on the other hand, crystallizes on its way out of the cloud.
But sleet freezes into compact balls on the way down, which is why it makes noise.
“Sleet pings,” said Schwenneker. “Freezing rain clings.”
Get used to it
But because snow starts out as crystals way up in the cloud, it turns out looser and quicker to melt.
Sleet, being compact, is more dense.
And salt, meanwhile, loses its effectiveness as a melting agent after a few days on the ground.
“That’s why,” Schwenneker said, “I think this sleet is going to stick around a few days.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2026 at 12:40 PM.