I will never forget ! 12-16” of powder! Snowed for Atleast 14-18 hours straight temp in single digits and teens! May never experience a bigger snow in my life! Ended as Freezing drizzle and put about a 1/8 th inch of crust on top! Amazing storm!
The neatest thing was that the storm got started about 8-10 hours earlier than expected… at least in the CLT area. I remember going to bed the evening before and Ray Boylan at WSOC had said “kids plan on going to school in the morning and parents be ready for them to come home early” as the snow wasn’t expected to start until about midday. Instead, the overrunning caused the snow to expand eastward and it started at our house around 4am when my Dad was getting home from his 3rd shift job. School was cancelled very quickly as the roads were getting covered right away and my parents didn’t bother waking my sister and I up, so we woke up around 8am and looked out the window to full light with several inches on the ground and it absolutely ripping outside.
YouTube has good highlights from weather channel on that system. Also, early Feb 1988 had another system but not as strong I think
I remember the storm well...It dropped a foot of snow or more from Oklahoma to the Carolinas. Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, and Charlotte were smashed. We may never witness another southern snow storm of this magnitude again.
Clint, we did in Feb 2021 and actually two systems and it was even colder then. Se of little rock had 20-25 inches then?
That's true... However, Jan-1988 covered a much larger geographical area in the south. When someone discusses southern sliders, Jan-1988 is the first storm to come to mind for most people.
You are correct. It was literally from the southern Plains all the way to Cape Hatteras. I think the closest since then was the January 2011 storm but as many in the eastern Carolinas know, that one just dampened out as a new coastal formed that was too far off shore for those folks. I remember watching TWC on the evening of 1/6/88 and the mets on TV that evening mentioned that the south gets that widespread of a major winter storm only every 30 years or so.
I was 9 and we lived in west memphis ar and snow drifts were over my knees then. Dave Brown said this one looks dangerous lol back then
I don’t remember the timing was supposed to start, but remember waking up in Gastonia about 5 am , and already had a powdery inch or two! Think the high the day before was mid 20s! Truly a once in a lifetime storm!
Yes.
I didn't see the word snow mentioned once.
I don't remember that one, but evidently it crawled up the coast as well. DCA had 9 inches, only 5 at IAD. NYC 4-7.
