11K in Charlotte area lose power, 10” of snow expected in parts of NC mountains
Fierce winds from an overnight storm knocked out power Saturday to about 11,000 Duke Energy customers in the Charlotte area and 46,000 statewide.
The same weather system was expected to dump up to 10 inches of snow in parts of the N.C. mountains, a National Weather Service meteorologist said.
Nearly 4,000 Duke Energy customers in Cabarrus County and 4,400 in Stanly County were without power at 7:30 a.m., according to the Duke Energy outage map.
Mecklenburg County had only 700 outages, but Duke Energy, in a statement, warned that the “extremely windy conditions are expected a cross much of the Carolinas today “Strong wind gusts will continue to cause tree and power line damage throughout the day.”
By 6:45 p.m., 3,287 Mecklenburg customers had no electricity and nearly 3,000 others in surrounding areas, the outage map showed.
Gusts up to 45 mph are expected across the region until 7 p.m. Saturday, according to a wind advisory issued by the NWS office in Greer, S.C.
CLT flight cancellations
At Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 82 flights had been canceled and 431 delayed as of 6:45 p.m. Saturday, according to Flight Aware.com, which tracks flights at the nation’s airports. It wasn’t clear how many were weather related.
Another 24,000 Duke Energy customers south of Asheville lost electricity, including about 7,800 in Henderson County, according to the Duke Energy map.
At 11 a.m. Saturday, 40,300 Duke Energy customers remained without power in North Carolina, the map showed, including 10,000 in Buncombe County. Asheville is Buncombe’s county seat.
In the Charlotte area at 11 a.m., power had been restored to all but about 2,000 customers, according to the Duke Energy outage map.
By 1 p.m., those numbers dropped to 19,100 still with no power in the state and fewer than 100 customers in the Charlotte area. But the numbers climbed again, to 22,700 statewide and 2,000 in the Charlotte area at 3 p.m.
Mountain snow
Counties along the Tennessee border expected 4 to 10 inches of snow by Saturday night, meteorologist Jeff Taylor of the NWS office in Greer, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer at 8 a.m.
Swain and Haywood counties were predicted to get the most snow, including Clingmans Dome, he said. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest elevation in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
On Friday night, Great Smoky Mountains National Park closed several of its roads in anticipation of the storm, including U.S. 441/Newfound Gap Road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee, Knoxville station WATE reported.
To the east, about 10,000 people have lost power in Wake County and the Triangle, The News & Observer reported, and the NWS has issued a flood advisory and warned of isolated tornadoes, especially east of I-95.
Charlotte forecast
Charlotte turned partly sunny by 9:30 a.m. Saturday, with a high of only 48 expected by afternoon, according to the NWS forecast. With winds at 20 mph, the day was expected to remain “breezy,” with gusts up to 32 mph predicted at Charlotte’s airport, NWS forecasters said.
Sunday should be sunny, with an expected high of 51, the forecast showed. Expect Monday and Tuesday to be much warmer, with respective predicted highs of 63 and 67 under partly to mostly cloudy skies, according to the NWS.
Showers have a 50% chance of emerging Tuesday night and Wednesday, while highs are forecast to climb to 65 Wednesday, 70 Thursday and 74 Friday.
This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 9:04 AM.