Forecasters warn of a 'potentially catastrophic' storm from Texas to the Carolinas
Source: AP
By JEFF MARTIN and HAYA PANJWANI
Updated 3:22 PM CST, January 20, 2026
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ATLANTA (AP) — With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South.
The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.
Forecasters on Tuesday warned that the ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/winter-weather-snow-ice-weekend-storm-ba67d30f05cbe14e9568907f09d2f13f
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My best friend lives in Hot Springs, AR. Looks like they'll be right in the middle of it. 
Very simple solution, no? 
in case needed
They read it in the N.Y. TImes, so it must be true. They
Won’t want to make it worse.
definitely be some trouble ahead from what I've read and heard. My fiancee's brother and wife just moved to CO from North Phoenix in part because they feared that the area they live in could in for serious H2O problems not too far off and they didn't want to risk losing their equity. My brother-in-law-to-be is pretty connected, very bright, and has lived in the Valley most of his life (also a raging liberal 
), so, if he's making a move like that based at least partly on that concern I have to think there's some areas where it may be wise to consider it at this point in terms of owning property.
He was specific though that it had to do a lot with what the source was in his neighborhood and it being more tenuous than some other parts of the valley, but offhand I don't recall where he said it was coming from. He lived just north of Lookout Mountain off of Greenway between the 17 and the 51.
But yeah, to think it's not safe to visit here for that reason would be silly at this point. But I was just being a smartass saying the kind of thing Trump would think, like "why not just leave" like everybody could do that lol.
For 2-3 days. Even SOCAL. Literally from the Canadian border to the Gulf and every where E-W. This is very rare to have the entire country below freezing at the same time for multiple days. Very very rare indeed.
Be very careful with some of the crazy snow totals models are spitting out. Those of us that live in snowy areas know this. Its a good rule of thumb this far out to prepare for the worst but expect 50% less or so of what models and FB and utube talking heads will be yelling about. This storm has been showing up as early as 7 days ago. Models have had crazy totals in the SE from 3ft in N/S SC, to a foot in N FL. Don't buy into the snow hype but buy into the cold hype. The absolutely frigid below 0 temps possibly all the way down into KY, TN, TX, LA. MS have a higher probability of happening than crazy 2ft snow totals in places that usually never get snow. Social Media is already bonkers screaming an yelling about this and I'm telling you its too early to freak out.
Dont worry about the snow down south. Worry about being ready for frigid temps Mon and Tues with potential grid overloads and power outages and be smart. Listen to your local NWS, not somebody selling yardsticks as snow measuring devices.
Stay warm, it won't last forever down there. You'll be in sweatshirts by Thursday 