Snow falling in the Midlands on Wednesday, but updated forecast calls for limited impact

Bundle up! It may snow farther inland that initially expected on Wednesday.

A system making its way northeast off the Florida coast could be moving closer to the South Carolina coast than expected, according to the latest forecast by the National Weather Service Center in Columbia. And it’s bringing moisture with it, which forecasters said will likely lead to snow.

The greatest potential for accumulating snow will be across the eastern Midlands and near the Interstate 95 corridor, where as much as 2 inches of snow could accumulate.

An updated forecast from NWS Columbia at 3:30 p.m. showed a decrease in activity from Burke County into Aiken, Barnwell and Bamberg counties. Expect heavier snow accumulations to slow rapidly in Orangeburg, Calhoun and Western Clarendon counties.

Heavier snow potential will remain for the next 3-4 hours in Eastern Clarendon, Sumter, and Lee counties.

A Winter Storm Warning has been issued by the National Weather Service for Orangeburg, Clarendon and Bamberg counties from 9 a.m. through 10 p.m., Wednesday. Burke, Lee, Barnwell, Sumter and Calhoun counties will be under a winter weather advisory from 9 a.m., to 10 p.m.

Meanwhile, the Lowcountry is also under a Winter Storm Warning. Carl Barnes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston, said forecasters’ confidence that Beaufort County’s chances of seeing up to two inches of snow within 12 hours has increased to 80 percent.

Bridges in Beaufort County were pretreated with a brine solution on Tuesday afternoon, said Kevin Turner, a district engineer with the South Carolina Department of Transportation. Trucks also are on standby with salt and sand as needed.

Steve Pfaff, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., said it’s going “a mess regarding travel given the antecedent cold ground/road conditions” for the Grand Strand. The Winter Weather Advisory issued for the area has now spread farther west to include Marlboro and Darlington counties.

Ice accumulations of .10 to .15 of inch are possible,along with 1 to 3 inches of snow for Horry and Georgetown counties, and surrounding areas, Pfaff warned. The wintry mix with a round of freezing rain is expected to begin mid morning for the Grand Strand, moving south to north, and eventually blanketing the region.

And in the Upstate, the models have become “more aggressive on the snow potential for at least half of Union County, according to the Wednesday forecasters discussion of the Greenville-Spartanburg office of the National Weather Service. The possibility of snow remains uncertain in other parts of the Upstate.

This story was originally published January 3, 2018 at 7:19 AM with the headline "Snow falling in the Midlands on Wednesday, but updated forecast calls for limited impact."