It is the greatest rivalry in college basketball(suck it Louisville-Kentucky) and there is a good chance a winter storm could make the first edition of UNC-Duke this season a complete mess.
As it stands right now, central North Carolina is due a fair amount of winter weather over the next 72 hours. The main thrust of the weather in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area could come on Wednesday into the night until Thursday morning. That would put game time in the middle of the expected worst part of the storm and complicate fans coming to the game.
As was the case when UNC traveled to Atlanta during a similar winter storm there, the game can still be contested if both teams, at least two officials and enough operations staff is present. Seeing that Duke is famously very close to UNC, getting the Blue Devils to the arena should not be an issue. The question would be whether officials could make it to the game. It should be noted that NC State is scheduled to play Wake Forest on Tuesday night which would mean a full officiating crew will be in the area though it is not known if they would or could be assigned to UNC-Duke the next night.
The question has also arisen that should the roads be too bad for fans to travel to the Dean Dome, would UNC open up the seating for the students as was the case during UNC's game versus Maryland in 2000 after a storm dumped 20-inches of snow on the area. The answer thus far on that is such considerations are premature. The storm is not promising that kind of accumulation of snow however ice on top of a couple of inches of snow would be incredibly dangerous to travel on. That kind of decision won't be made until much closer to game time. Should it come down to a situation where the students were permitted to take over the lower bowl of the Dean Dome, it would be an epic atmosphere for a UNC-Duke game.
It is highly unlikely the game would be postponed and such a move would be a last resort with the safety of everyone involved being a primary concern. As for now everyone is in wait and see mode because winter weather is incredibly unpredictable and anyone who lives here knows that nine times out of ten the forecast often portends a doom that never quite materializes.
