Meteorologists are warning that a powerful winter storm taking shape late this week could unleash a potentially catastrophic swath of ice, snow and freezing rain from Texas to the Carolinas, threatening power infrastructure, crippling travel and compounding the strain on communities already battered by weeks of extreme cold.
With much of the northern United States still digging out from repeated snowstorms and prolonged subfreezing temperatures, forecasters say this new system poses a distinct and dangerous threat to the South, where ice — rather than snow — is expected to be the dominant hazard.
“This is shaping up to be a widespread, potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in an assessment shared this week. “I don’t know how people are going to deal with it.”
According to The Associated Press, the storm is expected to arrive late Friday and intensify through the weekend, spreading across the nation’s midsection before pushing eastward. Forecasters caution that even modest ice accumulations can have devastating consequences, particularly in regions with limited experience handling prolonged freezing rain.
“If you get a half inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — that could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, chief executive of the Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina, where power companies are bracing for the possibility of widespread outages.
The National Weather Service said forecasts point to “great swaths of heavy snow, sleet and treacherous freezing rain” beginning Friday across parts of the central United States and expanding eastward through Sunday. Unlike fast-moving winter systems, this storm is expected to linger, raising the risk that ice will accumulate faster than it can melt.
Temperatures across much of the affected region are projected to remain below freezing even after precipitation tapers off, increasing the likelihood that ice will cling to roads, sidewalks, trees and power lines for days, forecasters said.
Predicting exactly where the most dangerous icing will occur remains challenging. Small shifts in temperature profiles can mean the difference between rain, sleet or freezing rain — a distinction that can drastically alter impacts on the ground.
“This is a very difficult setup,” forecasters said, noting that uncertainty remains high about the precise track and timing of the storm.
At the heart of the threat is a collision between two powerful atmospheric forces: an exceptionally cold Arctic air mass plunging south from Canada and a stream of moisture surging north from the Gulf of Mexico.
National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said the cold air expected later this week is unusually intense, even by midwinter standards.
“This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” Jackson said, pointing to a sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay that is funneling polar air deep into the United States. “This is dominating the weather over all of North America.”
As that cold air undercuts warmer, moisture-laden air moving east across the southern states, conditions become ripe for freezing rain — often the most destructive form of winter precipitation. When supercooled rain freezes on contact with cold surfaces, it can rapidly coat everything in ice.
Jackson said the clash of air masses could generate “a major winter storm with very impactful weather,” fueled by abundant Gulf moisture encountering entrenched cold air.
Forecasters are also monitoring the potential development of an atmospheric river — a long, narrow corridor of concentrated moisture — stretching across the southern United States.
If it materializes, the atmospheric river could sustain heavy precipitation from Texas through the Gulf Coast states and into Georgia and the Carolinas, significantly increasing the risk of damaging ice accumulations.
“Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like,” the National Weather Service office in Atlanta said, citing a strengthening signal for ice storm potential across north Georgia and parts of central Georgia.
In metro Atlanta, significant icing would pose particular challenges. Forecasts show overnight lows early Monday near 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 5.6 Celsius), with daytime highs struggling to reach the mid-30s. Such conditions could allow ice to persist well into the new week.
Transportation officials are bracing for widespread disruptions. Southern states typically have less equipment and fewer crews dedicated to snow and ice removal, making prolonged icing especially hazardous.
Extremely cold temperatures expected in the storm’s wake could also prevent melting, leaving roads treacherous for days. Earlier this week, winter weather contributed to a massive chain-reaction crash involving more than 100 vehicles on an interstate southwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan — a reminder of how quickly conditions can deteriorate.
Air travel is also expected to be affected. Major hub airports in Dallas, Atlanta, Memphis, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina, lie directly in the storm’s projected path, raising the risk of delays and cancellations that could ripple nationwide.
Texas is likely to experience some of the earliest effects, potentially serving as a preview of what lies ahead for the rest of the South.
National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said an Arctic air mass is expected to slide south through much of the state on Friday, while rain spreads across the region at the same time.
“That overlap is what concerns us,” Shamburger said during a briefing, noting that temperatures could plunge into the 20s — and even the teens — by Saturday in parts of the state.
Northern Texas could see a wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain, though Shamburger emphasized that uncertainty remains high regarding how much ice or snow will accumulate.
“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” he said.
Signs of preparation are already visible in parts of the South. In Little Rock, Arkansas, customers streamed into hardware stores this week to stock up on winter supplies.
“Right now parents of young children are getting sleds,” said James Carter, director of operations at Fuller and Son Hardware. Others, he said, were buying shovels, ice-melting products and faucet covers as temperatures in the area are forecast to dip into the teens.
What makes this storm particularly dangerous is not just its scale, but its timing and geography. Ice storms in the South often cause outsized damage because infrastructure and emergency response systems are less adapted to prolonged freezing conditions. A half-inch of ice can snap tree limbs, topple power lines and leave communities without electricity for days or weeks.
Compounding the risk is the broader weather pattern gripping North America. With Arctic air already entrenched across the northern tier, resources and personnel are stretched thin, limiting the ability of utilities and transportation agencies to surge aid southward if outages and accidents mount.
Forecasters stress that while uncertainty remains, the ingredients for a high-impact storm are increasingly aligning. If worst-case scenarios materialize, the storm could rival some of the most damaging ice events in recent Southern history — a stark reminder that winter’s most dangerous storms are not always the snowiest.
AP
