Virginia’s new governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn into office last weekend. She’s already doing tons of badass things, like removing a bunch of MAGA goons from university boards and ending VA state police’s cooperation with ICE thugs. But I fear that her first weeks in office will be marred by a historic weather event. Every meteorologist from Louisiana to New England is freaking the f–k out about a massive snow-and-ice event which is about to rip through the Southern plains, the South and mid-Atlantic in the coming days.
A major winter storm is expected to affect large parts of the southern and eastern United States later this week, but forecasters said on Tuesday that there were still significant questions over where exactly the potent mix of heavy snow, sleet, freezing rain and ice would hit. The most extreme weather is likely to begin on Thursday with a new surge of arctic air that will push temperatures even lower than they already are.
Much of the central and eastern United States may see temperatures fall as much as 30 degrees below the average for this time of year. The most severe cold is expected in the Upper Midwest, where wind chills — the combined effect of cold air and wind on exposed skin — may fall to around minus 50 degrees.
By Friday, with the frigid air in place, Bob Oravec, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said “the main ingredients are there” for a significant winter storm. As the system moves across the South, it will pull moisture-rich air from the Gulf of Mexico. That humid air will collide with the cold air and produce a “large slab” of snow and ice, stretching from the Southern Plains through the Southeast and into the Mid-Atlantic from Friday through the weekend, Mr. Oravec said.
While uncertainty remains around the finer details — which is typical this far in advance — Mr. Oravec said there was strong agreement among the forecast models on the overall setup and impacts of the storm.
“We’re highly confident it’s going to be a really impactful event,” he said. “Typically as we get closer to the event, the finer details do tend to become more certain.”
Every meteorologist is updating their models and forecasts every hour. There’s an agreement that there will basically be a wall of ice/sleet which will most likely cripple North Carolina. Here in Virginia, we’re supposed to get a historic snowfall, possibly up to two feet of snow within 24 hours. Many Southern states in the path of the storm will see widespread power outages. A lot of those states don’t have adequately prepared departments of transportation either – not enough plows, not enough salt, etc. The one nice thing about Virginia is that VDOT is usually pretty good and pretty prepared. Anyway, stay weather-aware, keep checking the forecasts and get all of your shovels, salt, gas and groceries today or tomorrow. And I guess we should all be prepared to lose power for a few days or weeks. We should also be prepared for Trump to not do a damn thing. No federal-emergency declarations, nothing.
PS… Another sign that this storm will be a historic event: Ted Cruz abandoned Texas for the beach.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was spotted earlier today, January 20, 2026, on a plane heading to Laguna Beach as the state of Texas braces for a rare ice threat and arctic cold front. pic.twitter.com/lVTcqP8LR4
— Shea Jordan Smith (@shea_jordan) January 21, 2026
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
