Massive Winter Storm Slams the Southern, Eastern USA

Written by Team Morecast

 

A powerful upper level low spinning out of northern Mexico met a surge of Arctic air to produce dangerous wintry precipitation from the Southern Plains through the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard. Crippling ice, heavy snow, and even severe storms have occurred with this system. More than a million residences were without power at one time or another. Some of these power outages will linger for several days, a very dangerous scenario with temperatures well below freezing in the forecast. At least 11 deaths are blamed on the storm as of Sunday night.

 

 

 

The northern side of the system featured heavy snow with accumulations of 8-16 inches (20-40 cm) in the mid-Plains and Midwest. As much of 20 inches (50 cm) has fallen in the interior Northeast and southern New England. A zone to the south saw sleet accumulations of 2-5 inches (50-125 mm) and icing over an inch in some spots. The hardest hit area for icing has been from eastern Texas through northern Louisiana and Mississippi to west-central Tennessee. Hours of thundersleet and heavy freezing rain have taken out many if not most branches in some communities, leading to widespread power outages. Power crews working in this area were forced to suspend restoration efforts because large trees branches were breaking off and hitting workers in their bucket lifts. More than 17,000 flights have been cancelled, including all flights in or out of Reagan National in Washington, DC. Sunday was the worst day for flight cancellations since the early part of the pandemic in 2020.

 

 

Severe storms were confined to the area near the Gulf Coast in southern Mississippi and Alabama as well as the Florida panhandle. But damaging winds exceeding 70 mph (113 kph) and even a few tornadoes were reported in this region.

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