Raleigh was in the dreaded ‘dry slot’ again while the rest of the state got snow
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Raleigh sits between mountain cold and Atlantic moisture, leaving it in a dry slot.
- The upper low stayed too far south and west while coastal moisture lagged behind.
- Collision of systems should arrive late Saturday, yielding about 2–5 inches by Sunday.
If you hope for snow, wish for a winter landscape, pray for the peace of drifting flakes — and you live in the area from Raleigh to the Sandhills — you may think you’re just not living right.
The dreaded doughnut hole struck again. The dry slot. The pocket of paucity, where we watch the weather vicariously, looking at social media photos of our friends’ snow-covered porches while our backyards are frigid but parched.
At least that’s how it felt for snow-lovers most of Saturday, Jan. 31, waiting patiently for flurries, anything, while the coast and most of the rest of the state watched as snow coated roads.
Why is Raleigh the Charlie Brown of winter weather? Why does it seem that so often, areas to the east and west get treated to the meteorological equivalent of full-sized Snickers bars while we get a frozen rock?
It’s our location. It sounds so nice in recruitment brochures to point out that Raleigh is more or less halfway between the mountains and the coast, but that placement, so perfect when you’re planning vacations, often leaves us in no man’s land when weather systems collide.
“It’s just where the systems set up,” Chrissy Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh, said Saturday morning as snow was flying in the mountains and in Charlotte and at the beach and decidedly not in Raleigh.
That did change, with snowfall beginning Saturday evening and into the night. By Sunday morning, Raleigh had 2 to 3 inches of snow while Durham had 3 to 4 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
The optimum conditions for snow to happen in North Carolina, weather experts say, involve cold air coming down from the north and/or the west meeting moist air coming off the Atlantic or up from the Gulf. The bigger the two systems, the wider the spread of the snowfall.
Midday Saturday, the Triangle was the navel of North Carolina while the state tried to button a too-small shirt over a too-broad belly. The ends just couldn’t meet.
The upper-level low that brought the cold air in this storm was too far north and west, and the lower-level low, the one bringing the moisture, was still developing along the coast. Until they meet, it’s too dry in Raleigh for the snow to fall.
“Unfortunately, we don’t get anything until they get closer together,” Anderson said.
The good news, for snow-lovers at least, is that the collision did eventually happen, just later than predicted.
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This story was originally published January 31, 2026 at 12:46 PM.
