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| Tree damage from freezing rain already starting to show up in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in this video screen grab from Meteorologist Jock Williams, via Facebook |
At least 22 states are now under states of emergency due to the storm. About 55 percent of the nation's population, or 190 million people are under weather alerts related to this mess. These warnings and advisories cover 37 states, including here in Vermont.
Power outages continued to increase through the day, and it will get a lot worse tonight and tomorrow. As of 5 p.m. eastern time, more than 56,000 homes and businesses were without power in Texas. The outages in Louisiana were nearing 48,000
Flight Aware was showing almost 4,300 flights canceled today, and at least 9,200 canceled tomorrow. for a total of about 15,000.
The previous worst day in the past year for canceled flights was on November 9, when 1,900 flights were scrubbed due to the U.S. government shutdown, CNN reported.
Across the winter storm area, where snow, sleet and freezing rain was falling, cities looked like ghost towns.
For instance, video from Live Storms Media showed snow and ice-covered highways aroundMemphis almost free of traffic. Most of the few vehicles on Memphis area highways were tractor trailers hauling goods to, gawd knows where.
This storm will no doubt disrupt shipping. At the very least, don't be surprised if your Amazon package is late.
Freezing rain continues to be the biggest danger with this storm, though the heavy snow is no slouch in this either. Parts of the storm are turning out to be pretty electric, so some places in the South are dealing with thunder and lightning combined with the freezing rain and sleet.
That state of affairs should continue into the night at least.
An ice storm is really bad news wherever it might hit. The fact that the South is getting the bulk of the freezing rain is even worse. I've mentioned before the region is heavily forested. Because the South has infrequent winter storms, they don't cut tree limbs away from power lines as utilities in the northern United States do.
Which means it's more likely that falling trees or branches would hit power lines in the South instead of falling harmlessly away from the wires.
In many areas in the ice zone, the freezing rain is falling lightly. Or at least tapers off to a lighter rain at times. That's actually bad news. As Matthew Cappucci explains in the Washington Post, when a raindrop freezes, it released a teeny amount of latent heat. If it's really pouring that latent heat can add up, and could bring temperatures above freezing. Or at least bring nearby raindrops above freezing.
A freezing sprinkle doesn't release much heat. So it adds up on trees and power lines, causing chaos.
A new storm hazard has appeared. It looks like the systems warm front will get into the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and extreme southwest Georgia. These areas will turn briefly warm and humid overnight and part of tomorrow. That is until the storm's cold front approaches.
These areas could see severe thunderstorms and maybe even a few tornadoes before temperatures fall sharply later tomorrow. Interestingly, the area under the tornado threat is the same are that had some very rare for them snow last Sunday
The snow and some sleet will send up slowing travel from New Mexico to New Brunswick and beyond. In the United States, everybody in a wide band between about Roswell, New Mexico to Eastport, Maine will end up with at least six inches of snow. Many spots in this vast zone of snow will end up shoveling more than a foot of snow. In some places, sleet mixed in will make the chore especially onerous.
As the storm closed in, panic buying continued, as people stripped grocery shelves of water, milk, bread, eggs and whatever else people thought they needed.
"I know people want to be ready, but calm down, you don't need to buy all the toilet paper in Virginia," Kim Lee told WWBT "Some of the things I wanted to make sure I have, I do not have."
VERMONT EFFECTS
Well, I guess we can say today was sunny for a change. It's been such a gloomy winter that any sunshine is a blessing.
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| No panic buying in Vermont, apparently. The bread aisle in a Colchester supermarket looks well stocked today. |
Not many people were out today, at least as far as I saw when I was out doing errands. The only knots of activity were at grocery stores. But unlike the panic buying elsewhere, the store shelves I saw seemed well stocked.
It did manage to get above zero in Burlington this afternoon, keeping a usually long streak going. The last time Burlington had a high temperature of just 0 degrees was on January 15, 2022. The last time we had a subzero high temperature was January 6, 2018.
Subzero high temperatures used to be quite a bit more frequent than they are now.
As late afternoon arrived, I could see high, thin clouds on the southern horizon. That's the first sign of our storm.
The temperature will drop like a rock for the first half of tonight as skies remain mostly clear for awhile. It'll actually be a bit colder than earlier forecasts hinted at. The "warmer" valleys will probably make its the upper single numbers below zero. Most of Vermont will be in the teens below zero, and the Northeast Kingdom could get as low as 25 below.
The increasing clouds late tonight will keep temperatures from really bottoming out. Readings should level off after midnight, and maybe even rise a bit toward morning.
THE STORM
The forecast really hasn't changed much since this morning. Within 24 hours or so before a storm, the computer models can start looking at picky details.
It's looking like the initial thump of snow tomorrow evening will come down quite hard, especially in southern Vermont. Late at night, the snow could lighten up somewhat.
Then, during the day Monday, the storm might form a little trough or extension northwestward into Vermont. I say 'might" because meteorologists aren't entirely sure yet. But it's likely, and that would make snowfall heavier for a few to several hours near wherever it might set up. Preliminary guesses have it setting up somewhere in central Vermont.
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| This evening's updated snowfall prediction map for Vermont and surround areas is little changed from this morning. Source: NWS/South Burlington |
Not sure, so we'll keep an eye on that.
The forecast for total snowfall hasn't changed much. The National Weather Service is still going with 8 to 16 inches by Monday night, with locally higher amounts maybe in the southern Green Mountains. Or where and if that trough sets up for several hours somewhere in Vermont.
The snow will still probably start tomorrow afternoon. So if you have some supplies to nab, do it in the morning. The roads will be bad from Sunday afternoon on through Monday.
Sure, it's going to be a fluffy snow, but visibility will be poor, and some of that snow will compact into ice on the roads.
A saving grace is it won't be all that windy during the storm, so blowing snow won't make the visibility even worse. The snow should finally peter out Monday evening.
The upcoming week also continues to look quite chilly, but not nearly as bad as today. Still, every night in the coming week starting Monday night around the Northeast Kingdom will probably go below zero.
After this storm blows through, it still looks like very little if any snow will fall Tuesday through at least next Saturday. Or even later than that.
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