01/21/2026
If you’re new to North Carolina, WELCOME!!! Buckle up, buttercup. You’re about to experience what we call a Carolina Winter.🤠
A Carolina Winter lasts approximately 6 or 7 days.🤷🏼♀️ During this time it will be cold, possibly icy 🥶⛄️and there may or may not be snow ❄️. The meteorologists will lose all credibility and aggressively threaten snow. If they say 3, it could be 3” or .3” or spiritually snow but not physically snow at all. The amount does not matter. We will panic 🤯because snow is rare and therefore clearly a crisis.🤪
The mention of snow or ice is your official signal to sprint to the grocery store and buy milk 🥛, eggs 🥚, bread 🍞 and bottled water. Do you need them? Irrelevant. You’re buying them anyway 🤷🏼♀️ (milk sandwiches 🥪 are a regional delicacy). You will see everyone you’ve ever known. It will feel like a class reunion with carts.
Next, you’ll attempt to find faucet covers. This will turn into a real-life episode of The Hunger Games 😂 May the odds be ever in your favor. You’re in the redneck district now. Saddle up. 🤠
Do NOT look for a sled. There are none. They sold out in 1997. If we get enough ice🧊 or snow ❄️to slide, grab cardboard 📦, a trash can lid 🗑 or something you found in your garage and find the nearest hill. This is tradition.
Just go with it. You’ll be fine. Probably. 😳
We do not own winter equipment. 🚜The roads will be chaos. Even though the state has said for a week they’re ready; they are emotionally ready, not physically. If you can stay home, stay home. If you can’t, accept that nobody here knows how to drive in snow or ice, including the people telling you they do.
If you slide off the road or get stuck, turn on your flashers, breathe deeply, and wait. Two dudes 🧔🏻♂️🧔🏼♂️in a 4x4 truck will appear out of nowhere within minutes. Do not help them. They live for this 😂🤪. If one of them yells, “HEY Y’ALL WATCH THIS,” back up, pull out your phone, and start recording. Congratulations, you’re about to go viral on TikTok. 🎉
Also, don’t talk about how you did it “back home.”
Nobody cares.
You live in North Carolina now.
Carolinians know we live in the greatest state in the country. It’s our way or the highway, literally.
When we act like we’re going to die 💀during these 6 or 7 🤷🏼♀️ days of winter, please respect that. We are not joking, and we do not care how much you love ❤️ cold weather.
Within a week to ten days, you’ll be back in flip-flops 🩴 and shorts 🩳 wondering what all the fuss was about. It’ll be nice until around Easter 🐰🐣
Then comes Second Winter. This lasts 3 or 6 days and always hits right after you plant flowers or start a garden 🌻🍅🌸🫛. That’s how we know you’re not from here.
Second Winter will take us from 70° to 25° in 24 hours. You’ll experience all four seasons before lunch.
Then you’ll enjoy the 3 or 4 hours 🤪 of “spring” 🌈🌷before summer shows up and melts your face off 🥵 until sometime around Halloween 👻🎃.
Welcome to North Carolina.
Bless your heart 😉🤷🏼♀️😂
