Transitioning out of Fall and into the Winter months brings an increasing threat for wintry precipitation, exciting for some but a headache for many others. While some imagine winter as picturesque landscapes with lightly falling snow quietly painting the evergreens, others see traffic nightmares and a paralyzing coating of ice that leaves millions without power.
In October of 2005, Hurricane Wilma – at one point the strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic basin (see image below) – barreled across southern Florida with winds of 120 mph. Wilma sounded the last roar of one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons ever, one that included Hurricanes Rita and Katrina devastating the Central Gulf Coast within weeks of each other. Overall the 2005 season saw hurricanes amass a record $159 billion worth of damage, not to mention cost almost 4,000 lives. But we haven’t witnessed a storm as strong as Wilma make landfall in the US since.
The cold season is upon us in the northern hemisphere, and millions of people in the central United States got an early dose of wintry weather during the Thanksgiving holiday, when a large and slow moving storm dropped a combination of rain, snow, sleet and freezing rain, creating icy driving conditions from Texas to Minnesota. But do you know the difference between the different types of wintry precipitation? We explain them all below:
Residents of the British Isles can be forgiven for coveting the warm, sunny summers enjoyed by Americans across much of the contiguous US. Nobody’s going to mistake the many parts of the U.K. that remain locked in a cool and blustery pattern for weeks at a time in the summer for tropical getaways, but the fact is they could have it worse, especially in the winter.