'Cruel cold' to invade N.C. through weekend
Temperatures have started a drastic tumble that will take them into the mid- teens by Friday morning. Wind chills will make it feel like it's in the single digits.
Posted — Updated"We'll end up with about 44, 46 hours of temperatures below freezing. That includes the high temperature tomorrow (Friday). Then we'll struggle to get above freezing Saturday, maybe for only a couple hours," WRAL Meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner said.
"We won't have a chance of getting back to normal until the end of next week," Fishel said.
will combine, and they can result in frost bite and lead to hypothermia if precautions are not taken, the weather service said.
Thursday hit its high in the low 40s in the early afternoon, and during the lunch hour, people bundled up to stay warm along the Fayetteville Street Mall.
"I'm from New Jersey, so people always say to me, 'This is nothing to you,'" said the operator of Guido's hot dog stand. "But cold is cold, no matter where you're from."
"We trudge through it every day," said Micah Pearce. He and his coworker at the Healing Place, Melvin Glasgow, wore several shirts, jackets and long gloves.
As the sun set, temperatures fell, heading for the teens in much of the state and into the single digits in western counties.
By 10 p.m., the temperature at Asheville had sunk to 14 degrees, and the wind chill made it feel like 1 below zero, the weather service reported.
At Jefferson, northeast of Boone, the thermometer read 9 degrees.
Winds will gust up to 25 mph, making it making it feel like it's in the single digits around the Triangle and close to 0 degrees in the northwest Piedmont – including Orange, Alamance and Person counties – Friday morning.
"(Friday) is going to be the the day we see the coldest air (arrive)," Gardner said. "It's really going to stick with us over the weekend."
On Friday, the forecast high is a frigid 27 degrees, and the temperature could drop to 9 degrees early Saturday – which would break a record low set Jan. 29, 2000.
Temperatures will rise into the 40s Sunday and continue to moderate early next week.
Cold can be dangerous
People should also be particularly careful with space heaters, which pose a fire danger: They cause a fifth of home-heating fires and account for 75 percent of deaths from those fires, Raleigh firefighters said.
The homeless are more at risk because prolonged exposure to cold temperatures can result in hypothermia.
Some Triangle residents planned a long-distance escape from the cold.
"We're going deep-sea fishing. I can't wait to go to the beach," Nicole McKinley said.
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