GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Piedmont Triad is getting ready for what could be its first taste of wintry weather for the season. A glaze of frozen rain is possible on the roadways Saturday morning. Some city and NCDOT crews are preparing the roads Friday night to get ready - just in case. Spectrum is even alerting customers about possible outages. Here's what we know.
Road preparations
Greensboro and Winston-Salem city crews are salting and brining main roads, bridges, and thoroughfares. Greensboro's crews will start road preparations Friday night at 10 p.m. Winston-Salem crews already got started on Thursday and will continue preparations on Friday.
NCDOT crews have also been out brining major highways and roads. NCDOT officials said all counties will either have skeleton crews reporting early Saturday morning or staff on-call to respond if needed.
Spectrum
Spectrum is warning customers of potential service outages due to possible freezing rain. Here's a screenshot of a text the company sent out to customers on Friday:
Warming Centers
Several organizations are opening their doors as warming centers during the freezing temperatures. The Interactive Resource Center in Greensboro will be open all day and night on Saturday. Shelter is also available at the Salvation Army of High Point, West End Ministries (for women only), and Open Door Ministries (for men only). See operating hours below:
Closings
Guilford County Schools posted on social media that all school events and travel before 11 a.m. Saturday are canceled. For the latest on other closings in the area, click here.
Forecast
WFMY News 2 Weather team gave this forecast:
A strong storm system is developing across the south loaded with moisture and will move our way and cross through the Piedmont on Saturday. It could even bring some wintry precipitation to our area when it starts.
Our rain will move in overnight Friday into Saturday morning. As it's moving in our temperatures in the upper atmosphere will be too warm for anything other than rain, but at the ground, temperatures will be right around or just below freezing. This would cause our rain to fall as "freezing rain" freezing on contact with the surface if it's below freezing.
A couple of hours of freezing rain is possible, especially to our north and west and up over the Foothills early Saturday morning, mainly 5AM - 10AM.
By mid to late morning, any freezing rain will turn to just a regular cold rain for our area, lingering through the afternoon.
Our storm system for Saturday is a fast mover, moving in Saturday morning, but already moving out by Saturday evening.
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