By now, a lot of newcomers to the Charlotte area are thinking, "What just happened?  Wasn’t there supposed to be not just one, but TWO winter storms here last week?  Are you kidding?  Why, I used to walk to school in 3 feet of snow all winter long!"

Well – get used to Southern weather.  Due to the geography of the area, the weather systems don’t always behave as predicted.  Hark back to 1989 and Hurricane Hugo.  When it finally landed in Charleston, SC, no one expected it to barrel right on through Charlotte still categorized as a hurricane – but it did.  I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been told that a ‘small’ winter storm will be passing through – only to get dumped on with 12" of snow when it stalled over the area (kids LOVE that!).

 Generally, if the weather system is arriving from the Tennessee area, the mountains will break it up and we get nothing.  If it is coming up from the Georgia/Gulf area, we’ll tend to get something.   And, as you’ve now experienced, sometimes it’s all a lot of hype over nothing.

Just take it all with a smile and realize that we do have the best of both worlds here.  Mild winters are common, but when we get a real storm – the ugly part is usually over pretty quickly – no 2 months of filthy slush and mud to deal with!