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| Oxford, Mississippi today. Photo by Meteorologist Eric Graves via Facebook |
Tales of how dreadful our giant winter storm has been in so much of the United States have been emerging all afternoon. And for many, it'll keep going overnight.
As of mid-afternoon, five people had so far died in the storm and frigid weather, and that toll is almost surely going to rise. Two people died of hypothermia in Louisiana and three apparently homeless people were found dead in New York.
Over one million homes and businesses across the South had no electricity as of mid-afternoon.
I'm terribly worried about people in the South who won't have power for days. In general, houses aren't really insulated against frigid weather.
Temperatures are likely to fall to 10 degrees or lower in western Mississippi, which has been hard hit by the ice storm. Readings won't get above freezing there until Tuesday afternoon, and even then, just barely.
Hard-hit Nashville expects temperatures in the single digits tonight and possible as low as 0 tomorrow night. As of mid-afternoon, 203,302 homes and businesses in Davidson County, Tennessee, which includes Nashville, had no power. That represents 92 percent of the customers there.
Some people in the county, and throughout the South, won't have electricity back for days, perhaps weeks in a few instances.
A similarly bad ice storm struck the Nashville in February, 1994, but it didn't get nearly cold after the storm as it will this time.
It's not just trees and power lines collapsing. At least two buildings collapsed in Gainesville, Texas, near the Oklahoma border due the heavy weight of sleet on roofs. A large race car and classic car shop in northern Mississippi also collapsed due to the ice.
In Dallas at around 1 a.m today, traffic snarled as 19,000 people left American Airlines Center after a Mavericks game and tried to get home on freeways covered in snow and sleet. A hill on the Woodall Rogers Freeway was too much for many cars.
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| Nashville today. Via Mark Fairless/Facebook |
In St. Louis, for the second time this winter, traffic came to a standstill because of many crashes on the freeways around the city.
Reed Timmer's video of Oxford, Mississippi showed massive destruction to the city's trees. It reminded me very much of the tree carnage here in northwest Vermont during the Great Ice Storm of 1998.
Similar scenes are playing out in northern Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. It was beginning to get that bad in the Carolinas this afternoon.
Snowfall totals are starting to get impressive. Examples include 16.6 inches in Davis, West Virginia, and more than 13 inches at sites in Missouri, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.
Even greater snow totals are likely by the time the storm ends, especially in parts of Pennsylvania, much of New York and New England. Up to 30 inches of snow could fall in New York's Catskills.
Areas south of the ice and snow zone have their own troubles. At one point this afternoon, the National Weather Service had the southeast corner of Alabama under a tornado warning, severe thunderstorm warning, tornado watch, freeze warning, cold weather advisory, extreme cold watch, and a wind advisory.
Air travel is still hopelessly snarled. By midafternoon, 11,727 flights had been canceled today, according to Flight Aware. Already, more than 2,600 flights tomorrow are scrubbed
As darkness fell, most, but not all of the precipitation was confined to the Appalachians, East Coast and eastern Great Lakes.
VERMONT EFFECTS
Anyone who looks out the window can tell our storm is here. As expected, snowfall this afternoon has been quite a bit heavier in southern Vermont than in the north.
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| National Weather Service storm prediction map hasn't changed much since this morning. They might have added an inch or two to Northeast Kingdom totals. |
Unlike in the rest of the nation, the storm here in Vermont is arguably doing more good than harm. It's definitely boosting the winter sports industry.
The exceptionally cold air is keeping the snowflakes tiny, especially in the north, and that has also cut back on total accumulation. For now at least.
I don't think I've seen a snowstorm this cold since February, 2015. At 4 p.m., Montpelier reported moderate snow and a temperature of 1 below. It doesn't appear any place in Vermont was warmer than 6 above late this afternoon.
Temperatures should hold steady or grudgingly rise overnight, but not by much. It might be 10 degree or so by dawn, and make it into the mid and upper teens in the afternoon. Not great, but an improvement over the past couple of days, I guess.
It was really snowing in southern Vermont as of 5 p.m. and snowfall rates were picking up in the north, and that trend will continue into the evening.
The snow will keep cranking overnight, but tend to taper off in the early morning hours. In some areas, it might not be snowing at all at dawn. This might annoy some people, because a ton of school closings have already been announced for tomorrow.
But maybe the school closings are a good idea, since the snow will pick up again during the day.
The main storm will be heading out to sea early tomorrow, which is why we're going to temporarily lose the snow. But the huge system's upper atmospheric support will come through during the day, which will create lift in the atmosphere. Lift means snow at these temperatures.
The snow is quite dry and is blowing off the roads fairly easily. At least at first. Road crews might have a little trouble keeping up with it is snowing hardest. Plus, salt does not work well at all when it snows at such low temperatures.
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| Traffic cam grab shortly after 4 p.m. today caught Vermont State highway crews clearing snow from Route 9 in Searsburg. |
Even during the lull in the snow tomorrow morning, I can't imagine road conditions will be all that great. Since it'll pretty much snow all day, the roads will stay snowy and slick all day, too.
The National Weather Service in South Burlington hasn't change the expected accumulations much since this morning.
They've added an inch or two maybe to the Northeast Kingdom, and now they're more or less calling for a foot of snow up there.
The southern Green Mountains are still looking like the big winners, with an expected 18 to 24 inches. This type of storm sometimes over-performs in the southern Greens, so it's possible they could get more. No promises, though.
After this storm goes by, I still don't see any signs any new big storms for at least ten days. But we are locked in a cold weather pattern. If we're lucky, the weather might modify to something just seasonal chilly in about a week.
But that just gets us up into the 20s during the afternoons. Not exactly warm. But at least the sunsets are getting later. This coming Saturday will bring us the first 5 p.m. sunset of the year.
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