Winter Blasts Where They're Not Supposed To Happen

All those blues and purples you see on today's National
Weather Service home page are winter storm warnings, 
watches and advisories, and wind chill warnings and
advisories. By Sunday, these winter storms will
extend all the way down to the Texas Gulf Coast. 

 If you enjoy the harsh, stormy, frigid weather we're used to in a Vermont winter, it seems the best thing to do for the next few days is go to Portland, Oregon. Or Dallas. Or Houston. 

Seems odd for sure, but those areas are getting hammered by for what they all consider some really extreme winter weather. 

The big blob of frigid Arctic air that has been sitting over south-central Canada and the northern Plains of the United States has oozed westward, allowing the usual parade of storms coming off the Pacific Ocean to take on a very wintry character. 

Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon do get snow from time to time, but this round is something, especially for areas around Portland. Some areas near Portland could get up to an inch of ice accumulation from freezing rain. That's more than enough to bring down trees and power lines. 

In the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, blizzard conditions are expected to develop tonight. In Portland itself, a half a foot of snow could come down.

Things will get even more dramatic as these storms from the Pacific dive down toward Texas and the Gulf Coast.

Remember yesterday I mentioned the jet stream is bending, taking a deep dive from the northern Plains toward Texas. This will bring the super cold up there down to Oklahoma and Texas.  Combined with the storms, things will get downright dangerous in the Lone Star State and Oklahoma, mostly because they're not use to weather more typical of Vermont than a southern state 

In most of Oklahoma, six to 12 inches of snow is expected between now and Monday. What's especially odd is the forecast temperatures during this.  During the storm, Oklahoma City is expecting a high temperature of 12 degrees with a low of 0. 

That's wicked cold for them, and it's unusually chilly even for a snowstorm up in our neck of the woods. By Monday morning, Oklahoma City temperatures should be down around 6 below, which is record territory for them.  Another snowstorm is possible around Wednesday. 

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has endured more winter horribleness than they want. That massive highway pileup Thursday in Fort Worth involving about 130 vehicles ended up killing six people and injuring 65 others  -  a terrible tragedy. 

After some more patchy freezing drizzle through Saturday a snowstorm will begin in earnest around Dallas later in the weekend, with near blizzard conditions expected. 

Even more remarkably, the winter conditions will go all the way to Houston, where an ice storm and some snow is a good bet toward Sunday and Monday.  Temperatures there by Monday morning will be around 15 degrees, which is, again, record cold.

This will be the most intense and longest lasting cold snap around Houston in at least 30 years, so people there will need to hunker down. 

There's going to be a LOT of damage in Texas as crops freeze and water pipes burst in countless homes and businesses. Remember, winter insulation in buildings isn't a thing there like it is here in Vermont. 

As we talked about yesterday, after the jet stream takes that big plunge toward Texas, it will then curve northward up the East Coast. 

That means the cold air in Texas won't be able to work its way to the Southeastern United States. For instance, Atlanta expects high temperatures in the fairly normal 50s for most of the upcoming week. 

That developing bend in the jet stream up the East Coast still seems destined to bring us more storminess here in Vermont.  Most of the storms have been heading off the coast well south of us, so it hasn't snowed much here lately, except on February 2.

It still remains to be seen whether a storm on Tuesday will come up close enough to give us a lot of snow, but it does seem the chances are better for that than previous storms.  This Tuesday storm could still miss northern Vermont.  Not sure yet, we'll have to wait and see for updated forecasts.

That bend in the jet steam could become so sharp that it takes the next good-sized storm from the eastern Gulf of Mexico inland instead of along the coast. If that happens, we in Vermont might end up with a bunch of ugly mixed precipitation or even some plain rain at the end of next week. There's still a roughly equal possibility that late week storm could stay all snow.  Again, we have to wait for updated forecasts.