Bitter cold makes its way to the Piedmont and High Country this weekend

Bitter cold is on the way for the Piedmont and High Country this weekend.  

An arctic front is moving across the state today bringing with it cold, dry, blustery air that will blanket the region. Temperatures will fall through the afternoon, and by Saturday morning expect them well down into the teens and 20s in the Triad. 

National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Blaes says more worrisome is the accompanying wind chill.

“Which at times was going to be below zero, certainly in the mountains, maybe as cold as 15 or 20 below zero in some spots at the highest elevations,” says Blaes. “And in the Triad area, we're going to have wind chills on  Saturday morning in the single digits, you know, between 5 and 10 at a time. So, it is going to be remarkably cold. Not record-breaking, necessarily, but still remarkably cold and the coldest air where we've had certainly this season.”

Single-digit winter temperatures are a little unusual in this part of the country, and for that reason Blaes says tonight would be a great night to do some thinking about how to prepare for the extreme cold.

“My recommendation — at least at my house — we're going to have a couple of faucets dripping,” he says. “We're gonna probably open our cabinets to make sure we get some warm air in those pipes. Crawl spaces — make sure your vents are closed to try to keep the warm air in the crawlspace as much as possible. Make sure your hoses, if you have any of those still plugged in, are removed from your spigot so those don’t freeze.”

Blaes says don’t forget about your pets and livestock as the cold will be a shock to their systems, and they’ll need fresh water available that hasn’t frozen. And he adds, do check on neighbors — especially those elderly or at risk — who might need extra assistance.

As we head into the middle and end of next week, warmer weather is on the way. Blaes says in the Piedmont, unseasonably higher temperatures in the low 60s are expected.