Record Warmth And Temperature Clash Caused Danger, Storms, Weirdness Across Much Of Nation

Screenshot of video taken through windshield as the
vehicle drove over a bridge with the Texas
wildfire beneath it. 

It's obviously not just Vermont going through strange weather, record highs, storminess and temperature swings. 

Other parts of the nation are getting either blasted or weirded out, too.   

TEXAS FIRES

Probably the most dangerous situation is in north Texas, where wildfires spun way out of control Tuesday amid rock bottom humidity and winds gusting to 70 mph.

 It didn't help that a cold front abruptly shifted the strong winds from the west to the north, making the fires especially erratic. 

One of the fires is the second largest in Texas history.  It's about half the size of Rhode Island and growing. That same fire also spread into Oklahoma and was 0 percent contained as of early this morning. 

The fires sent people fleeing from a series of rural towns and ranches north of Amarillo. 

Though details are still sketchy, the town of Fritch, population 2,000 appears to be hard hit, with an unknown number of homes lost, says the Associated Press. At one point, the city of Borger, population 13,000 was entirely surrounded by fire, so people couldn't flee. 

Several homes in the town of Canadian also burned, according to CNN.

Firefighting efforts and a wind shift kept most of the fire outside of Borger.

The wind has lightened up and cooler weather has arrived. There might even be a small amount of rain and snow Thursday. But dangerous fire conditions are forecast to return next week.  

MIDWEST TORNADOES

At least 13 tornadoes hit parts of northern Illinois, Ohio and Michigan yesterday and last night. That's very far north for tornadoes this time of year, especially that many. 

In late February, there is often an uptick in tornadoes, but those almost always occur in the Southeast during the last winter.  

Screenshot of tornado damage in Michigan this morning. 

In the Midwest, there were several reports of damage, but no serious injuries. Chicago's O'Hare airport was briefly under a tornado warning, but it appears no twisters touched down there. 

A few severe thunderstorms are possible today and this evening in a broad stripe along the Appalachians from Alabama to Vermont, but no additional tornadoes are forecast. 

TEMPERATURE WEIRDNESS

The cold front causing the severe weather and worsening the wildfires also caused lots of strange temperatures changes. 

Yankton, South Dakota was sunny and 70 degrees at 4 p.m. Monday. Exactly 24 hours later, it was 13 degrees and snowing. 

St. Louis reached 86 degrees on Tuesday, its hottest February day on record. Just 15 hours later, it was 60 degrees colder, at just 26 degrees. 

On Monday, Rockford, Illinois reached 73 degrees, breaking the record high for the entire month of February and for meteorological winter, which runs from December 1 through February 29.  That record lasted only one day, as Rockford reached  78 degrees Tuesday, incredible for that far north.

By 7 a.m. today, Rockford was down to 19 degrees with a north wind gusting to 51 mph and a wind chill of 2 above. 

It looks like at least 120 weather stations in the United States had their all time hottest February day over this past week. 

Record warmth hit parts of Canada, too. Ormstown, Quebec, about 50 miles northwest of Alburgh, Vermont,  reached 69 degrees, the hottest February temperature on record in the entire province of Quebec. 

Several cities in Ontario also had their hottest February day on record. The same cold front making temperatures crash in the United States is also hitting Canada. This morning, Sudbury, Ontario went from 41 degrees to 14 in an hour. 

SIERRA BLIZZARD 

A separate storm is set to cause one of the worst blizzards of the 21st century in the Sierra Nevada mountains. 

Between Thursday morning and Sunday morning, lower elevations near Lake Tahoe can expect two to four feet of snow with winds gusting to 60 mph. A little higher up, snow totals are expected to reach four to eight feet with winds gusting to 100 mph. 

Forecasters warn that travel will become virtually impossible for days, that stuck cars could end up being entirely buried in snow. Whiteout conditions will quickly disorient anyone out on foot. So it's a dangerous storm. 

One of the few bright sides to this storm is that total snow cover is lagging a little bit in the Sierra, and this will help them catch up.