A half-foot of snow is forecast for parts of North Carolina and Virginia as a powerful storm system that's also carrying freezing rain and sleet blows into coastal areas of the Southeastern U.S.
Chris Stokes picks up extra provisions at a grocery store in Norfolk, Va., on Friday Jan. 21, 2022, as the city prepares for an upcoming snowstorm.
The snow will “probably be sticking around for a little bit,” said Alec Butner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia. “We finally get into the 40s on Sunday. We might have some melting by that point.”Transportation officials in the southeast corner of Virginia said Friday morning that crews had been working overnight to treat the roads, but warned people to stay off of them.
Near Raleigh, an ambulance transporting a patient slid off an icy road early Friday, injuring two workers aboard, according to the state Highway Patrol. The patient died after the crash, but the cause of death hasn’t been confirmed. The governor’s office said numerous crashes were reported Friday morning after the storm’s first wave.
“I bought some salt, so I’ll sprinkle that outside the walkway and just kind of brace for it,” Stokes said. The storm that’s been forecast is a rare event, which people are taking pretty seriously, Strange said.