Rain, light snow begin as Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head prepare for uncommon cold
It’s raining and snowing lightly across Beaufort County as a dangerous winter storm that’s expected to bring uncommon cold and snow to the region for the second year in a row approaches.
On Saturday at 2 p.m., the National Weather Service in Charleston was predicting as much as 1-2 inches of snow Saturday night into Sunday with a low of around 22 degrees. Wind chills could be as low as 7 degrees due to winds of 14-17 mph with gusts as high as 32 mph. The chance of precipitation is 80%.
In advance of the storm, downtown Beaufort was quiet, with many businesses closing early to make sure employees got home safely before the worst of it hit. Downtown shop owners deciding to wait out a storm isn’t unusual in the coastal city. But usually, it’s a hurricane, now a snowstorm, that forces closures.
At Tanger Outlets 1 in Bluffton, plenty of stores remained open Saturday afternoon, but it appeared that about 30% were either closed or closing early.
Island Packet reporter Li Khan contributed to this story.
This story was originally published January 31, 2026 at 2:49 PM.
