I recently moved to the Raleigh area and have decided that WRAL will be my source for news and weather. My question would be for the weather dept. I keep hearing the term Triangle and Triad, could you please define what the Triangle and Triad areas are? Thanks in advance.

MIKE MOSS SAYS:     Tommy,    Welcome to the area! Those two terms are used a lot as general geographic references around here. Each refers to the area within and immediately surrounding a roughly triangular area formed by connecting the dots between three "vertex" cities.

In the case of the Triad, those cities are Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, covering an area in the northwest Piedmont section of the state. The Triangle (short for "Research Triangle") covers the area within and around the cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

You'll also hear us mention "The Sandhills." Though loosely defined in terms of political boundaries, "The Sandhills" usually refers to a group of counties south of the Triangle that includes Lee, Harnett, Richmond, Anson, Montgomery, Scotland, Hoke, Moore and Cumberland. More technically, it is a geological feature that covers varying portions of those counties, and extends southwest into South Carolina and Georgia.

We'll often mention the "I-95 corridor" as a convenient location marker as well, although that one is pretty self-explanatory.