Winter threat prompts changes, early publication

     Today’s Tabor-Loris Tribune, in print and online, is available a day early, on Tuesday, with significant uncertainty on a winter weather threat this week.

     Newspapers are tp be entered in the various post offices on Tuesday, Jan. 21, and weather permitting should be arriving for most subscribers a day early this week. Store and rack deliveries are to be made Tuesday, too.

     Columbus County Schools were already closed for students, with teacher work days on Tuesday and Wednesday, classes at the Columbus Career and College Academy the only ones in session.

     CCCA students and staff across the county school system are to be released at 1 p.m. Tuesday, an announcement from the district after 7:30 p.m. Monday said.

     Columbus and Williamsburg counties were included in a Winter Storm Watch that includes five coastal counties from Pender to Georgetown, a 4:15 p.m. Monday, Jan. 20 summary from the National Weather Service said.

     That bulletin said snow amounts had been “raised slightly” from previous forecasts for the area, the timing from late afternoon to early evening Tuesday through early Wednesday morning, with up to two inches of snow expected, and “locally higher amounts.”

     Snowfall was expected to begin between 3 and 8 p.m. Tuesday, with the greatest impacts between 8 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday. Precipitation should end by 8 a.m. Wednesday, the NWS said.

     Snow coupled with below normal temperatures could make driving treacherous, especially through Thursday night if melted snow and ice re-freezes, creating “black ice,” the NWS reported.

     Good news from the forecast, there is “very low risk for downed trees, limbs or power lines,” the bulletin said.

     More from the National Weather Service office in Wilmington can be found here or on Facebook here.