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| Ice storm damage in Oxford, Mississippi. Photo by Desmond Nugent, via Facebook. |
The area under the gun is huge. As of early this morning, precipitation was just tapering off in Texas, while snow was entering New England.
As has been the case throughout this episode, freezing rain has been the worst aspect of this mess. As of around 8:30 this morning eastern time, more than 643,000 American homes and businesses were without power.
Tennessee had the most with about 197,000 outages. The Nashville area is especially hit hard.
In Davidson County, Tennessee, where Nashville is located, more than 65,000 homes and businesses were without power early today. That's more than 40% of the customers tracked in the area, according to CNN.
This will be one of the worst power outages the U.S. has seen in awhile. "I think this has the potential to rank up as one of the more consequential storms we've seen in the last five or six years," said Jim Robb, president of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, according to the Washington Post.
In addition to the trees and power lines snapping under the weight of ice, many homes in the South are not built for long stretches of cold weather. Heating is inefficient in these houses, so people use more electricity, and that puts more stress on the electrical grid.
The bulk of the freezing rain is shifting to the Carolinas and northern Georgia today. Freezing rain was already falling in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina as of 8:30 a.m. today.
Heavy snow was falling across the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast. The storm is unusually cold. As of 9 a.m., it was snowing fairly heavily in New York's Central Park and the temperature there was only 11 degrees. Washington DC was only at 16 degrees.
In Charlottesville, Virginia, the snow had changed to freezing rain as of 9 a.m. and the temperature was only 13 degrees. It's very rare to have freezing rain with temperatures lower than the mid-20s.
On top of all this, there's still a risk of severe thunderstorms and maybe a couple tornadoes in and near the Florida Panhandle today.
This whole mess has completely gummed up the nation's airlines.
The number of flights canceled Saturday ended up at 4,616, according to Flight Aware. As of 7:30 a.m. the number of flight cancellations had reached a whopping total of more than 10,200.
After the storm, roughly 110 million Americans will endure subzero cold in the coming days. If there's a fresh snowpack, nights can be much colder than they would be with little or no snow. Since Arctic air is still feeding down from Canada and there is now a huge snowpack in the U.S., the frigid air will only get worse.
VERMONT EFFECTS
The bright blue sky we had yesterday has been replaced by a dull gray as our big snowstorm comes in for a landing today.
Burlington got down to 8 below shortly before midnight, and that's the coldest temperature we've had so far this winter, the temperatures started to slowly rise after midnight as the clouds rolled in.
Almost everybody else in Vermont started "warming up," if you can call it that after midnight. Before that started happening, Montpelier reached 15 below, St. Johnsbury hit minus 17, and Morrisville hit a frigid 20 below. Lake Eden made it to at least 26 below, which makes me wonder whether anybody in the Northeast Kingdom hit minus 30. More data should come in later to answer that question.
The Snow
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| Latest snow accumulation forecast from the National Weather Service/South Burlington. Storm totals have increased to 18 inches or more in the central and southern Green Mountains. (red shading) |
Places north of Route 2, should see about a foot, with maybe a little less than that near the Canadian border.
There's one caveat in that the initial push of heavy snow tonight might not make it as far north as thought. If that happens, snow totals north of Route 2 might go down. But for now, count on a foot or so.
Central Vermont should be in the 12 to 15 inch range.
Much of southern Vermont should be close to 18 inches or so. Exceptions might be along the immediate western slopes of the Green Mountains. Places like Rutland might "only" get a foot.
East facing slopes of the Green Mountains, places like Ludlow, could get 18 inches to as much as two feet of snow. Even on valley floors in southeastern Vermont, there could close to two feet. Current projects for Brattleboro give them 21 inches.
As of 8:30 a.m. radar appeared to show snow starting to move into far southern Vermont. But that was just snow beginning to fall from the clouds and evaporating in the dry air. For awhile this morning, you'll see snow pretty much covering Vermont, but none hitting the ground.
Once the snow up above moistens the air enough, then it will start snowing. I'll mention again you can watch that process happen today. You'll see the mountain tops blur first as snow starts up there. At first, the snow will evaporate in the dry air up around three or four thousand feet in elevations.
But the evaporating snow will moisten the air, and you will see the "blurriness" head down the slopes until it's snowing in the valleys.
Get your supply runs done this morning. Forecasters have slightly moved up the time when the snow wills start falling. The snow should start coming down between noon and 2 p.m south and west of Interstate 89, and between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. elsewhere. Way up in the Northeast Kingdom it could hold off until 5 ..
The initial burst of snow will come in hard this evening, especially in central and southern Vermont. Snowfall rates could go up to an inch or more an hour.
According to the National Weather Service, it seems there might be a bit of a lull in the snowfall early Monday morning. By around 7 a.m., about five to eight inches of new snow will cover the ground north, while southern Vermont might have 8 to 15 inches of fresh, fluffy snow.
Road conditions for the morning commute will not be great, so try to work at home if you can. If not, plan to spend a lot of time cleaning snow from your car and driving slowly. Since this is a fluffy snow, passing cars and trucks on the highway will really stir up the snow on ground, leaving you blinded at times on the highways.
At this point, it appears snowfall will pick up steam again in the afternoon. It won't come down as hard as it will tonight, but it will fall heavily enough. The National Weather Service is expecting three to seven inches of new snow during the day tomorrow, give or take. If you do head into work Monday, you're going to have a tricky drive back home, too.
The snow will finally dwindle off tomorrow night.
AFTER THE STORM
Plenty of frigid Canadian air will be in place to keep us cold all week. Daily high temperatures should be mostly in the teens.
Nighttime lows are forecast to be mostly in the single numbers below zero, with maybe the warmer spots staying just above zero.
But remember, we'll have a lot of fresh snow on the ground. In the past, I've been surprised by how cold it gets just after a snowstorm. I wouldn't be surprised if Vermont sees a couple nights in the teens or even 20s below zero in some spots.
I'm also not seeing any signs of milder weather at least through mid-February.
We won't see much additional snow for awhile after this storm goes by, either. Maybe just scattered light snow showers occasionally during the next 10 days or so as weak disturbance keep coming through to reinforce the cold air.
Through yesterday, Burlington has had 38 inches of snow so far this season. That's about four inches behind where we should be this time of year. This storm will put us ahead of normal, but we might end up falling behind again if forecasts for a lack of additional storms comes true.
Before the upcoming storm, snow cover wasn't all that impressive in low and some mid elevations in Vermont. An exception is in and near the northern Green Mountains,. Greensboro had 28 inches of snow on the ground on Saturday and Westfied had 23. It'll be interesting to see what their snow cover looks like after this storm.
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