When is the last time all 100 NC counties had snow? That and more winter trivia
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- All 100 NC counties reported measurable snow during a rare statewide nor’easter in 2010.
- 2010 storm closed airports, filled hotels and halted normal travel.
- Raleigh’s only recorded Christmas Day snow came in 1947, totaling about 0.4 inches.
For one rare Sunday morning, 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.
Hundreds of flights got canceled, and every hotel along Interstate 95 filled up with accidental tourists seeking refuge on the way home from grandma’s house.
But it did provide a white almost-Christmas, turning golf courses into sled runs and mall parking lots into demolition derbies.
Speaking of which ...
When is the only time in North Carolina history — at least as far back as the National Weather Service records it — that Raleigh experienced snow on Christmas day?
Answer: 1947. We got what an N&O reporter described as a “dazzling” four-tenths of an inch.
Who got the most?
It appears from the tally compiled by NBC 12 in the Triad that Davidson County edged out the rest of the state with a whopping 16 inches in Lexington.
Curious about other winter trivia?
Shoot us an email at jshaffer@newsobserver.com and we’ll see what we can hunt down.
This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 10:24 AM.