Even if Raleigh dodges brunt of storm, beware: Ice could add 500 pounds to a power line

By Thursday morning, a half-inch coat of ice could cover the Triangle’s northern counties, adding dangerous weight to trees and power lines.

Just a quarter-inch can add 500 pounds to an overhead cable, warned ABC11 meteorologist Don “Big Weather” Schwenneker.

If the ice builds up to half an inch, the weight of a tree branches gets multiplied by 30.

“So if a tree branch weighs 100 pounds,” he said, “it’s up to 3,000 pounds.”

The annual villain of Triangle winters, the ice storm, is set to strike again overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning.

Schwenneker calls for Raleigh to see only a glaze to a quarter-inch, meaning roads treated with salt brine likely will not be slippery. But bridges, overpasses and any other surface not touching the warmer ground could be treacherous.

To the north and west in Durham and Franklin counties, the weather scenario looks more likely to generate as much as an inch of ice, threatening widespread power outages and roads too slick for driving.

With that kind of buildup, the chance of snapping branches and lines grows great. Schwenneker offered this warning in his morning forecast: Don’t park under a tree.

Also remember that weather patterns don’t recognize county lines, complicating predictions.

Wake County tends to divide between gentle and severe. Schwenneker noted that Wake County school closures more often come from snow in Wake Forest, while his own children in Holly Springs shrug their shoulders at the conditions outside.

But he noted one predicting factor that rarely fails.

“Weather patterns don’t follow county lines, but I’m shocked how many times they follow roads,” he said.

In Durham and Orange counties, Interstate 85 forms the Triangle divide. North of it always fares worse than south.

In Wake, the jumping-off point is U.S. 64. Schenneker wonders if it was originally built where planners knew they would just escape the iciest weather.

But where the ice falls heaviest, arborists offer this advice for clearing ice off the branches: Don’t.

This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 10:30 AM with the headline "Even if Raleigh dodges brunt of storm, beware: Ice could add 500 pounds to a power line."