Winter Storm To Blanket Southeast With Snow; Blizzard Conditions Possible In Coastal Virginia, North Carolina Rob Shackelford January 31, 2026 at 12:05 AM 76 A winter storm this weekend will intensify into a bomb cyclone, with snow, strong winds and coastal flooding from the nor'easter from the Carolinas to New England. A few areas in southeast Virginia and eastern North Carolina could also see blizzard conditions. Power outages, reduced travel conditions and lifethreatening cold could last several days after the snow and wind move away.
- - Winter Storm To Blanket Southeast With Snow; Blizzard Conditions Possible In Coastal Virginia, North Carolina
Rob Shackelford January 31, 2026 at 12:05 AM
76
A winter storm this weekend will intensify into a bomb cyclone, with snow, strong winds and coastal flooding from the nor'easter from the Carolinas to New England. A few areas in southeast Virginia and eastern North Carolina could also see blizzard conditions.
Power outages, reduced travel conditions and life-threatening cold could last several days after the snow and wind move away.
(MORE: How To Survive A Winter Power Outage | Preparation Guide For Winter Storms)
This latest storm has been named Winter Storm Gianna by The Weather Channel.
Current Alerts
Various alerts, including winter storm warnings, are in effect for parts of the Southeast, as well as Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.
Significant snowfall is likely in some of these areas this weekend. Travel is expected to become dangerous and power outages and closures are likely, some of which could last multiple days. Wind gusts closer to the North Carolina and southeast Virginia coast could drop visibility significantly.
In general, the worst weather will be where blizzard warnings or winter storm warnings are in effect on the map below.
Bitter cold air will come down from Canada and the Upper Midwest behind Gianna. Such brutal Arctic air has already proven fatal earlier this month. For more on the potential record cold, check out our comprehensive forecast.
Timing
- Friday night: Snow will spread out of the southern Appalachians into lower elevations of southern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, North Carolina, northern South Carolina and northern Georgia as low pressure organizes off the Southeast coast.
Cities with snow: Atlanta, Charlotte, Asheville, Knoxville
- Saturday and Saturday night: The storm gains strength along the Southeast coast with snow, heavy in spots, along with increasing wind. Blizzard conditions are possible in the Outer Banks, possibly into northeastern North Carolina or southeast Virginia. Wind gusts could reach 70 mph close to the coast.
The snow will spread as far south as the Lowcountry of South Carolina and parts of eastern Georgia, especially Saturday night.
Cities with snow: Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Columbia, Knoxville, Raleigh, Virginia Beach, Wilmington
- Sunday: While the offshore low reaches its peak intensity, snow may end by late morning from the Delmarva Peninsula southward to Virginia and the Carolinas. Snow is possible in parts of southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and extreme Downeast Maine. High winds and coastal flooding at high tide are also possible along parts of the East Coast from North Carolina to New England.
- Sunday night: After lingering in at least parts of eastern New England Sunday night with snow, strong winds and coastal flooding at high tide, the storm moves away by Monday, with only some lingering coastal flooding possible early.
Snowfall
The best chance of heavier snow from Winter Storm Gianna will be in the Smoky Mountains, as well as over parts of North Carolina and northern South Carolina, where some totals could top 5 inches through early Sunday morning.
As you can see in the map below, accumulating snowfall is also forecast as far south as the South Carolina Lowcountry, including Charleston, and even possibly Savannah, Georgia. It's also forecast as far west as Atlanta, especially the eastern metro, and both Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Roads in these areas may become increasingly treacherous, if not impassable, by later Saturday or early Sunday, and may remain so through at least Monday morning with cold air spilling behind the storm. And as alluded to earlier, rare blizzard conditions are possible near the coast in eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia.
Given the bomb cyclone's more offshore track, it now appears snow accumulations in New England may be restricted to southeast Massachusetts. But strong winds could lead to sharply reduced visibility, there, as well.
Winds
There is a threat for strong winds, capable of power outages and some tree damage, along at least parts of the East Coast from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to New England.
Wind gusts could reach 70 mph along the coast in eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia.
These winds may also combine with snow to produce blizzard conditions, at times, in parts of eastern North Carolina, southeast Virginia and eastern New England, as well as some damage to trees and power outages.
Gusts of at least 40 mph are possible in southeast Massachusetts, including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Coastal Flooding
Coastal flooding at high tide is likely this weekend into early Monday along parts of the East Coast, particularly in the Virginia Tidewater and northern Outer Banks where strong winds will be most onshore, pushing water toward the coast.
According to National Weather Service forecasts, the high tide where coastal flooding may be worst in southeast Virginia and the northern Outer Banks appears to be early Sunday morning, where some locations may see moderate to major coastal flooding.
Some minor coastal inundation of 1-3 feet is also possible in eastern Massachusetts on Sunday morning.
Compounding this is the lining up of this storm with Sunday's full moon, meaning tides will already be high.
Bomb Cyclone, Nor'easter
Low pressure off the Eastern Seaboard will become intense by Sunday.
It will wind up fast enough to be deemed a "bomb cyclone" a term for rapidly strengthening low pressure.
It's a scary sounding phrase, but it turns out bomb cyclones happen about once a year off the East Coast in the colder months, feeding off the sharp contrast between cold air over land moving over the warmer ocean.
This East Coast storm will also become a nor'easter, a term for an East Coast storm in which the winds ahead — to the north — of the storm come from the northeast.
(MET 101: Bomb Cyclones | Nor'easters)
One model forecast of the nor'easter, potential bomb cyclone off the East Coast on Sunday.
Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climate scientist at weather.com. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Georgia studying meteorology and experimenting with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Source: "AOL Breaking"
Source: Breaking
Published: January 30, 2026 at 07:54PM on Source: MARIO MAG
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