Freezing temps in Midlands, SC under wind chill advisory as winter storm crosses US

Temperatures plummeted and gusty winds roared through the Midlands Friday morning as a winter weather cold front caused by a monster storm that has gripped much of the nation moved across South Carolina.

“Strong winds, then dangerous cold,” a headline on the website of the National Weather Service in Columbia read shortly before 9 a.m. Friday about the pre-Christmas Eve sudden chill.

Dominion Energy, which provides power to much of South Carolina, reported Friday morning that some 14,300 customers were without electricity, including 4,398 in Richland County and 5,215 in Lexington County.

The number of people without power was expected to fluctuate as Dominion workers fixed downed lines and new outages were reported, said Dominion spokesman Matt Long.

The strong winds were responsible for most of the power failures, Long said.

“We will continue to work until the last outage is restored,” he said, “and credit to our employees who are out there in these frigid conditions working through the holiday weekend. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

A cold air mass will settle over the Midlands Friday night. Wind chills will make it feel as if the temperature is zero across much of the area, the National Weather Service said.

The Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory for the Midlands and all of South Carolina, noting that the wind chill factor — accelerated heat loss from the body aggravated by winds — could be life threatening if action such as dressing warmly or going indoors is not taken.

Wind gusts of up to 45 mph were expected.

“It’s been a couple of years since we had anything like this,” Mike Proud, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia, told The State newspaper Friday, citing the combination of extreme cold and strong winds.

Proud said that the Midlands can expect the chill weather to persist for the next several days.

“It will be mostly sunny, mostly clear skies for the next three days,” he said. Temperatures will fall below 20 degrees the next three nights, he said.

Friday’s weather is part of the same storm system that has gripped much of the rest of the country, he said.

More than 200 million people, or roughly 60% of the U.S. population, are under some form of winter weather warnings or advisories across the country, according to the National Weather Service.

Across the country, more than 1 million people were without power, The Washington Post reported Friday morning.

Duke Power, which provides electricity to much of the Upstate, reported Friday that widespread power outages were likely as the cold front moves across the state.

This story was originally published December 23, 2022 at 9:38 AM.