Ok, so I was curious as to whether or not many folks in the area should be legitimately frustrated with the lack of winter weather. Is it really as bad as we think it is, or does the fish story grow bigger with each telling? So I went to Raleigh's Past Events page and took a look. These are NC specific, but you can probably mentally extrapolate to other areas of the SE and derive a reasonable picture of an event's impact. I have added my subjective grading for the winter. Also, it may be that RAH didn't list everything, although they do a pretty good job capturing these events. If there is something missing, let me know.
2022 (D): 1 winter storm on 1/15-16 (eastern sections saw very little)
2021 (F): None listed
2020 (F): None listed
2019 (D):
- A good winter storm on 12/9/2018 for areas west to east north of Raleigh. Very little for southern areas
- One minor ice storm listed on 1/13
2018 (B):
- 1 mountain and mainly foothills event on 12/8-9/2017
- Several small and a couple of good snow events, the biggest of which occurred on 1/17-18 with very little south of the state
2017 (F): None listed
2016 (D): 1 event on 1/22-23, where the entire state saw snow and sleet. 2" or more was confined to the western half of the state with good totals for the mountains.
2015 (B-): Several small events with two moderate events, the biggest of which was a nice snow for the northern and western part of the state. B- for multiple events
2014 (A): Multiple events, the biggest of which was significant snow and ice on 2/12-13. It was a good winter for NC.
2013 (F): 4 minor events listed
2012 (F): 1 minor event listed on 2/19
2011 (A+): Several events listed with with the infamous Christmas storm of 2010 topping the list
2010 (B+): Quite a few moderate to small events, including one pretty widespread snow event on 2/12-13
2009 (C+): 2 events listed with 1/20 showing the highest totals in central/eastern NC
2008 (NA): It looks like 3 events listed, but they won't pull up.
So, out of the last 15 years, it looks like we've had 5, maybe 6 decent winters in NC. By decent, I mean a good number of events with snowfall NOT confined to just one specific area.
The last one was 2018, unless you lived in the mountains last year. This is all predicated on the fact that RAH has listed everything of note.
My conclusion is that over the last 5 years or so, many in the SE have not had very much to cheer about. There is no list of storms that almost happened but didn't. But my suspicion is that there hasn't been very much to even track over the last few years, which is very disappointing....to me at least.