Winter storm watch issued for parts of Charlotte region. What areas could see most snow?
The National Weather Service on Wednesday issued a winter storm watch for parts of the Charlotte area, as another bout of snow, sleet and frigid temperatures were expected by week’s end.
Classes were still out for some school systems on Wednesday, including the Iredell-Statesville Schools, as secondary roads remained icy and impassable from last weekend’s ice and snow storm. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools had a two-hour delay Wednesday.
While it’s back to in-class learning for other school systems Thursday, Iredell-Statesville will be remote-learning only due to icy secondary roads throughout the county, officials said.
Wednesday’s mostly sunny skies and high of 59 degrees in Charlotte helped with melting, but certainty grew over another storm system on the way.
From Thursday night to Saturday morning, the storm could dump up to 2 inches of snow in Charlotte, 2.7 inches in Monroe and, as the top snowfall, up to 3 inches on northeastern Union County, meteorologist Doug Outlaw of the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C., said Wednesday morning.
The NWS issued the watch for Union County and, in South Carolina, York, Chester and other counties, where up to 4 inches of snow could fall. Mecklenburg County is not under a winter storm watch yet.
The NWS predicts 0.03 inches of ice to fall in Indian Trail and 0.04 inches elsewhere in Union County, but that’s far lower than the quarter-inch that made Charlotte-area roads impassable last weekend, Outlaw said.
Monroe ‘totally prepared’
The city of Monroe encourages everyone to stay of roads during the storm, if possible, spokesman Pete Hovanec said.
“We are totally prepared and have adequate supply and staffing to meet need and demand,” Hovanec said in an email. “Usually trouble spots of bridges and overpasses but nothing major.”
In bad-weather events and other emergencies, Union County Emergency Management sets up telephones in the county emergency operations center to field requests for special assistance and receive reports of damage, outages and blocked streets, officials said. The number to call is 704-289-1591.
Charlotte weather forecast
Charlotte has a 70% chance of rain Thursday, with a forecast high of 47 degrees, according to the NWS forecast at noon Wednesday.
The rain should change to snow by about midnight, but only 0.1 of an inch of snow is expected to fall through sunrise Friday and another 0.2 inches from sunrise to noon, Outlaw said.
Snowfall should then intensify, with 1.2 inches expected through Friday afternoon and a half-inch from sundown to midnight, according to the meteorologist.
And Friday will be frigid, with a high of only 31 forecast, Outlaw said.
The low is expected to plummet to 21 degrees early Saturday. While Saturday’s high is predicted to reach only 36, the day should be sunny, according to the NWS forecast.
Early Sunday could drop to 19 degrees, but Sunday’s high is expected to rise to 43 degrees, the NWS forecast shows.
