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Tag: winter (season)

  • Janney Elementary students bring in the holidays – WTOP News

    At Janney Elementary School in Northwest D.C., they have an annual singalong during their winter spirit week. Kids from Pre-K4 through fifth grade assemble in the school gym to sing popular holiday songs.

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    Janney Elementary School students ‘sing in’ the holidays

    Schools like to celebrate the holidays in different ways. At Janney Elementary School in Northwest D.C., they have an annual singalong during their winter spirit week. Kids from Pre-K4 through fifth grade assemble in the school gym to sing popular holiday songs.

    “It is a Janney tradition,” school principal Danielle Singh told WTOP. “I’ve been here five years, but this tradition goes back probably over 10 years, and so the last day before winter break, we get in our pjs and we sing and we celebrate the winter season.”

    The school, celebrating its centennial year, has over 700 students.

    “You can see and feel the energy. … Everyone wants to be here for this special day. And it’s really one of those traditions at Janney that just makes our school community so special,” Singh said.

    “Our glee club is an after-school program that comprises third through fifth graders that love music and love to sing,” music director David Ifill said. “I love teaching them and hopefully I make some impact in their life for music.”

    On the last day before winter break, the Janney School Glee Club — donned in their pajamas — sang especially for WTOP listeners. Just before taping the song, one young student said, “I’m going to be famous.”

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    Abigail Constantino

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  • How Californians are facing the onslaught of flooding, downpours and rough winds as the season’s 12th atmospheric river takes aim | CNN

    How Californians are facing the onslaught of flooding, downpours and rough winds as the season’s 12th atmospheric river takes aim | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Brightly colored toys buried in mud. Brown murky water where cars once parked. Family photos floating through a neighborhood.

    This is what one Southern California community looked like last week, lifelong Ventura resident Angie Thompson said, after the state’s 11th atmospheric river this winter wrought hurricane-like winds and catastrophic flooding.

    “We’re tired,” Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto said of a similar mess and clean-up effort hundreds of miles to the north as she joined Gov. Gavin Newsom and other local leaders to tour damage, including the breached Pajaro River levee.

    “Everyone is tired.”

    Yet again, though, the vast state is bracing for the wet blast of another atmospheric river – a long, narrow moisture band that carries saturated air thousands of miles, then discharges it like a fire hose. It’s due to impact the US West from Monday to Wednesday, with widespread rain across central and Southern California and more snow in the Sierra Nevada.

    While the series of storm systems – a regular part of California weather that may be supercharged this year by key climate patterns – is putting a dent in the state’s historic drought, it’s also lashed many of its residents to a carousel of misery with at least one more ride in store.

    “We have neighbors that have lost their entire home,” Thompson said. “One person in particular lost everything, and every time they’d get it under control, something else would happen, and the water would reroute and come back right through the family’s home.”

    The fatigue reaches far beyond those forced to muck out their living rooms. Evacuees fret over when they might be able to return. First responders ponder more triple-shift days – sometimes with their own relatives in need of rescue. And for some who’ve survived California’s other recent woes – from wildfires to mudslides to the Covid-19 pandemic – it’s another battle in the war with worry.

    “Anxiety wants something that no one can have, which is 100% certainty about things,” said Andrea Kulberg, a licensed clinical psychologist who works with Southern California clients highly anxious about disaster.

    People, she said, “want answers that no one can give them.”

    Thompson’s driveway has been a lake since an atmospheric river in January pushed a creek into the Camp Chaffee neighborhood where she’s lived for four years, she told CNN. Flooding swept away a whole box of wedding albums, baby photos, clothing, appliances and tools likely passed down through generations.

    Compared to some neighbors, Thompson’s damage was minimal, she said. But no one remains untouched.

    “Cars, yards … It’s affected every single person over here,” she said. “It’s just really horrible to watch people’s lives just wash down the river.”

    A four-hours’ drive north, more than 2,000 people were evacuated – and more then 200 rescued – this month in Pajaro. Ruth Ruiz left in hurry before dawn March 11 and couldn’t immediately return, she told CNN affiliate KPIX. She worried about her property – and how long it might take to get back to normal life.

    “We don’t really have a plan. We’re just taking it day by day,” Ruiz said. “But we have a feeling it’s going to be months before even insurance can cover any damages.”

    Von Berlanga, meanwhile, stayed in Pajaro and watched last week as water started seeping into his garage, he told CNN. His mom’s home had flooded back in January 1995, when an intense winter storm slammed Monterey County with 6 inches of rain, damaging over 100 homes. Three months later, a second winter storm hit already-saturated areas, causing much more damage.

    A car sits in floodwaters Tuesday in Pajaro, California.

    As the latest of this year’s atmospheric rivers pushed toward shore, Berlanga stayed put with supplies, even as the furnace still showed markings from the 1995 flood, he told CNN.

    “I was prepared,” he said. “I had 30 gallons of water, food for me, food for my dogs.”

    Then as floodwater started seeping into his garage, Berlanga raised his vintage cars out of harm’s way.

    “I jacked up my cars real quick. … They’re OK,” he said as he used a wide hoe to push muddy water around the driveway. “I woke up about 4 o’clock this morning and started cleaning.”

    Water from the Ventura river rises on January 9 to the 101 freeway in Ventura, flooding all lanes.

    During January’s storms, Ventura County Fire Department Capt. Brian McGrath and his team also rushed into action – completing about 80 rescues in one day, he told CNN. Such calls weren’t nearly as frequent last week, he said, crediting residents with being more prepared.

    As another atmospheric river revs up, McGrath and his team are, as always, on call, ready to go within 45 seconds – in some cases for 48 hours or more straight – he said.

    But being a firefighter in one’s own community can be draining.

    “We try to treat everyone around the community as members of our families or friends because a lot of times they are,” McGrath said. “We will make a rescue or end up finding out that it was one of our coworkers friends or family members.”

    “That also runs a toll on us because we’re missing so much of our own family.”

    McGrath is grateful for support from his colleagues and relatives, he told CNN. Without it, going from a long fire season straight into a long winter storm season would be completely draining.

    The state’s varied existential risks – on top of the waning pandemic – also weighs on ordinary Californians.

    As clinical director of Anxiety Experts in Southern California, Kulberg treats clients with anxiety stemming from the state’s deadly wildfires, mudslides and now its devastating floods, she told CNN. Some lost their homes or were rescued from their roofs.

    People “want to know: How long am I going to be distressed for? When’s it going to end? How bad is it gonna get?” she said. “No human can have that.”

    Through a treatment known as exposure therapy, Kulberg works with clients to confront their own stories repeatedly “to habituate to their fear thoughts and memories and visualizations surrounding the story.”

    “Then, they no longer are fearful of having their thoughts and memories and body sensations of anxiety surrounding those events,” she said.

    Damaged trailer homes are seen March 12 in the aftermath of a flood caused by rain-melted snow that raised the Kern River from about 6 feet to 17 feet in Kernville, California.

    For those dealing with higher levels of anxiety during these times, Kulberg offers these recommendations:

    • Remember anxiety cannot harm you; it comes in spikes and it will eventually subside.

    • Remember thoughts are not threats; thoughts that something terrible might happen as a result of extreme weather don’t mean it is more likely to happen, and most of what we think never comes true.

    • Regardless of what body sensations or thoughts of anxiety might be present, try to continue to do things that bring meaning and purpose to life.

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  • The Willow Project has been approved. Here’s what to know about the controversial oil-drilling venture | CNN Politics

    The Willow Project has been approved. Here’s what to know about the controversial oil-drilling venture | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    On March 13, the Biden administration approved the controversial Willow Project in Alaska.

    ConocoPhillips’ massive Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope moved through the administration’s approval process for months, galvanizing a sudden uprising of online activism against it, including more than one million letters written to the White House in protest of the project and a Change.org petition more than 3 million signatures.

    Here’s what to know about the Willow Project.

    ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project is a massive and decadeslong oil drilling venture on Alaska’s North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government.

    The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil. That oil would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed.

    ConocoPhillips is a Houston-based energy company that has been exploring and drilling for oil in Alaska for years. The company is the only one that currently has oil drilling operations in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, though its two operating projects are smaller than Willow would be.

    Willow was proposed by ConocoPhillips and originally approved by the Trump administration in 2020. ConocoPhillips was initially approved to construct five drill pads, which the Biden administration ultimately reduced to three. Three pads will allow the company to drill about 90% of the oil they are pursuing.

    The Biden administration felt its hands were tied with the project because Conoco has existing and valid leases in the area, two government sources told CNN. They determined that legally, courts wouldn’t have allowed them to fully reject or drastically reduce the project, the sources said. If they had pursued those options, they could have faced steep fines in addition to legal action from ConocoPhillips.

    Now that the Biden administration has given the Willow project the green light, construction can begin. However, it is unclear exactly when that will happen, in large part due to impending legal challenges.

    Earthjustice, an environmental law group, is expected to file a complaint against the project soon and will likely seek an injunction to try to block the project from going forward.

    Environmental groups and ConocoPhillips are each racing against the clock. Construction on Willow can only be done during the winter season because it needs ice roads to build the rest of the oil project’s infrastructure – including hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines and a processing facility. Depending on the weather, the Alaska’s winter season could end sometime in April.

    If environmental groups secure an injunction before then to stop or delay the project, it could delay construction for at least a year. And since the project needs to be fully constructed before the oil can be produced, it could take years for the oil pumped out of Willow to reach the market.

    The Willow Project will almost certainly face a legal challenge. Earthjustice has told CNN it is preparing a complaint, and it has already started laying out their legal rationale, saying the Biden administration’s authority to protect surface resources on Alaska’s public lands includes taking steps to reduce planet-warming carbon pollution – which Willow would ultimately add to.

    “We and our clients don’t see any acceptable version of this project, we think the [environmental impact] analysis is unlawful,” Jeremy Lieb, an Alaska-based senior attorney for Earthjustice, previously told CNN.

    The state’s lawmakers say the project will create jobs, boost domestic energy production and lessen the country’s reliance on foreign oil. All three lawmakers in Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with President Joe Biden and his senior advisers on March 3, urging the president and his administration to approve the project.

    A coalition of Alaska Native groups on the North Slope also supports the project, saying it could be a much-needed new source of revenue for the region and fund services including education and health care.

    “Willow presents an opportunity to continue that investment in the communities,” Nagruk Harcharek, president of the advocacy group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, told CNN. “Without that money and revenue stream, we’re reliant on the state and the feds.”

    Other Alaska Natives living closer to the planned project, including city officials and tribal members in the Native village of Nuiqsut, are deeply concerned about the health and environmental impacts of a major oil development.

    In a recent personal letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak and two other Nuiqsut city and tribal officials said that the village would bear the brunt of health and environmental impacts from Willow. Other “villages get some financial benefits from oil and gas activity but experience far fewer impacts that Nuiqsut,” the letter reads. “We are at ground zero for the industrialization of the Arctic.”

    In addition, a surge of online activism against Willow has emerged on TikTok in the last week – resulting in over one million letters being sent to the Biden administration against the project and over 2.8 million signatures on a Change.org petition to halt Willow.

    By the administration’s own estimates, the project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year – equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.

    “This is a huge climate threat and inconsistent with this administration’s promises to take on the climate crisis,” Jeremy Lieb, an Alaska-based senior attorney at environmental law group Earthjustice, told CNN. In addition to concerns about a fast-warming Arctic, groups are also concerned the project could destroy habitat for native species and alter the migration patterns of animals including caribou.

    Willow advocates, including Alaska lawmakers, vow the project will produce fossil fuel in a cleaner way than getting it from other countries, including Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.

    “Why are we not accessing [oil] from a resource where we know our environmental track record is second-to-none?” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said during a recent press conference.

    Yes. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden vowed to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters – which he initially carried out as part of an early executive order.

    However, the drilling pause was struck down by a federal judge in 2021, and since then the Biden administration has opened up several areas for new drilling. Several of these new oil and gas drilling areas have been challenged in court by environmental groups.

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  • California declares state of emergency in 13 counties after brutal winter storm traps residents | CNN

    California declares state of emergency in 13 counties after brutal winter storm traps residents | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Some California residents remain trapped inside their homes after a winter storm dumped feet of snow across the Golden State, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to issue a state of emergency in 13 counties, including hard-hit San Bernardino County.

    Authorities there had conducted almost 100 rescues by Wednesday evening, San Bernardino County Fire Chief Dan Munsey said in a news conference, though authorities have not learned of any serious injuries or deaths.

    “We’re responding to medical calls. We’re responding to fires in these trapped vehicles. We are going to people’s houses where they’ve had trees through their houses or some sort of roof collapse and we are evacuating them to our evacuation shelters,” Munsey said.

    Just over 70,000 homes and businesses remained without power early Thursday, days after the first round of winter storms hit California, according to PowerOutage.us. And while the state is getting a brief reprieve from the snow through the end of the week, another system is expected to move into Northern California this weekend.

    Newsom declared a state of emergency for San Bernardino County and 12 others – among them Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties – late Wednesday, with his office saying in a statement that a significant number of state personnel had responded to support San Bernardino County.

    The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has been working to bring additional snow plows and road crews to the county, and personnel from Cal Fire and the California National Guard “are readied to support operations.”

    It could take a week to 10 days to dig out the mountain communities hampered by the heavy snow, officials warned in a news conference Wednesday. Mountain residents were still unable to access roads Wednesday, per fire department spokesperson Eric Sherwin. The county has about 500 miles of tight, winding roads throughout the mountain areas that need to be plowed, county Public Works Director Brendon Biggs said.

    Many parts of California were buried under a significant amount of snow in recent days, and some places received more than 100 inches in the last week, according to the National Weather Service, leading authorities to warn residents about possible avalanches. Residents in a three-story apartment building in Olympic Valley had to be evacuated after it was struck by an avalanche Tuesday evening, engulfing the bottom two stories, the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. The building’s occupants were uninjured.

    Huntington Lake in the Sierra Nevada saw 144 inches of snow, per a report from the Fresno County Office of Emergency Services, which reported 10 to 12 feet of snow near China Peak, leading to the closure of Highway 168.

    In Southern California, 106 inches of snow were recorded since February 22 at Mount Baldy, outside of Los Angeles. Of that 106 inches, 29 fell in the past two days, according to CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward, while the other 77 inches fell late last week and through the weekend.

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  • Tornadoes and severe winds strike central US as another round of rain and snow is set to pummel the West and North | CNN

    Tornadoes and severe winds strike central US as another round of rain and snow is set to pummel the West and North | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    As severe storms prompted overnight tornado reports in parts of the central US, a barrage of snow, rain and harsh wind is forecast Monday in places from the West Coast to the Great Lakes, including some still without power following a similar string of severe weather last week.

    More than 231,000 US homes and businesses were without power as of early Monday, according to PowerOutage.US – about half in Michigan, which is bracing for another round of ice and snow to hit the region Monday.

    Tens of thousands also lacked power in Oklahoma, where at least seven tornadoes and 12 injuries were reported in Sunday’s severe weather. Two tornadoes were reported in Kansas.

    More than 100 other storm reports – including wind and hail – were recorded in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas as hurricane-force winds and severe thunderstorms tore through. A gust of 114 mph was recorded In Memphis, Texas – equivalent to sustained wind in a Category 3 hurricane.

    “I got up and then the wind just threw me back. And I’m screaming,” Frances Tabler of Norman, Oklahoma, told CNN affiliate KOCO. “It was like a blizzard inside the house.”

    Early Monday, flipped cars and downed trees littered neighborhoods where roofs had been torn from homes, CNN’s Ed Lavandera reported.

    In anticipation of severe winds and potential hail Sunday night into Monday, a unit at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, relocated most of its aircraft to protect them and ensure they can still be deployed if needed, the base announced.

    As the storm shifts north by Monday afternoon, a slight risk for severe weather – possibly a few tornadoes and wind gusts – could impact cities including Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

    In the West – where last week’s storms prompted rare blizzard warnings and road flooding in California – a separate system of rain and high-elevation snow will push from the Pacific Northwest down into California and into the Rockies through Monday.

    Nine western states are under winter weather alerts Monday as heavy snowfall is forecast across the region, including up to 10 inches in Washington state’s Cascades by early Tuesday; 1 to 3 feet in high elevations and mountain peaks of western Oregon; and 1 to 3 feet in mountainous areas of the Rockies.

    A blizzard warning remains in effect for the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, which could see between 2 and 6 feet of snow.

    Yosemite National Park was closed Saturday due to severe weather and will not reopen until at least Wednesday as the multiday blizzard warning remains in effect across Yosemite Valley, the park announced. The valley could see as much as 55 to 84 inches of snow by Wednesday, the park said.

    The storm system impacting Oklahoma and Ohio is expected to push into the Northeast by Monday afternoon, where interior parts of the region could see widespread snowfall totals of 6 to 12 inches.

    Meanwhile, the South is anticipating another week of unusually warm winter temperatures after steaming under record-breaking highs last week.

    Dozens of daily high temperature records could be broken again in the coming days as areas of southern Texas and the Florida Peninsula could see temperatures into the 90s.

    As the National Weather Service reviews the severe weather reports from Sunday into Monday morning, it will work to determine whether the system can be classified as a derecho, which forecasters previously said was possible.

    A derecho is a widespread, long-lived windstorm that typically causes damage in one direction across a relatively straight path, according to the weather service. To be classified as a derecho, the stretch of wind damage should extend more than 240 miles and include wind gusts of at least 58 mph along most of its length, it says.

    In total, more than 115 storm reports were made Sunday across the Southern Plains, mainly of wind across Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma. This also includes 14 hail reports in those states, with several hailstones reportedly 1.75 inches in diameter.

    Nine tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas, including one in the Oklahoma city of Norman, where police warned of road closures, downed power lines and debris.

    Twelve weather-related injuries were reported early Monday, the Norman Police Department said. None was critical, the department said after conferring with area hospitals.

    Students on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman were told to immediately take shelter Sunday evening as the area was under a tornado warning, which was lifted later that night.

    Officials in Oklahoma are still assessing the damage, though the most concentrated impacts appear to be in Norman, Shawnee and possibly Cheyenne, said Keli Cain, public affairs director for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

    Roughly a dozen families displaced by a tornado in Liberal, Kansas, are being accommodated and about 10 trailers were also damaged, City Manager Rusty Varnado said. At least one person was injured by broken glass, he said, noting the injuries are minor.

    Freezing rain, snow and ice across the Great Lakes region and parts of the Midwest last week resulted in perilous travel conditions, road closures and significant power outages that disrupted daily life for many.

    This week, the Great Lakes are poised to be hit all over again, including Michigan, where about 130,000 homes and businesses still did not have power early Monday after the prior storms damaged trees and utility lines.

    Ice-covered tree branches lie on the ground Thursday after an ice storm in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

    Utility company DTE, one of Michigan’s largest electricity providers, said 630,000 of its customers have been impacted by the storms so far. By Sunday night, power was restored to about 600,000 of their customers, the utility said.

    Another round of mixed precipitation is expected to move into the region Monday, with those under winter weather alerts possibly seeing between 2 and 8 inches of snowfall.

    As the storm moves east, winter storm watches are also in effect for parts of interior New York and New England through Wednesday afternoon. In total, these isolated areas can see up to 10 inches of snowfall.

    Boston, which is under a winter weather advisory from Monday evening until Tuesday evening, is expected to get 2 to 5 inches of snowfall.

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  • Strengthen your core with exercises you can do at home using only a paper plate | CNN

    Strengthen your core with exercises you can do at home using only a paper plate | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Dana Santas, known as the “Mobility Maker,” is a certified strength and conditioning specialist and mind-body coach in professional sports, and is the author of the book “Practical Solutions for Back Pain Relief.”



    CNN
     — 

    With spring still nearly a month away, the continued wintry weather and shorter days with less sunlight could be taking a toll on your motivation to get out and exercise. Understandably, you may be inclined to skip the gym in favor of staying cozy inside. But don’t let the winter blues keep you from moving your body!

    By getting creative, you can get the exercise you need at home not only to boost your physical health but also to increase the feel-good brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline to help you beat those doldrums.

    There are lots of ways you can work out in the comfort of your home quickly and simply — without expensive gym equipment. With a little ingenuity, broom handles, backpacks and other everyday household items can serve as useful tools during your workout. If you have access to stairs, there are numerous exercises you can do using just two stairs. Even a paper plate can be used for exercise.

    That’s right, just a single paper plate can provide all the means necessary for a surprisingly challenging total-body workout that strengthens your core and improves your balance. It may sound far-fetched, so I’ve outlined the exercises below and included an instruction video at the top of this article so you can try it for yourself.

    Important note: Before beginning any new exercise program, consult your doctor. Stop immediately if you experience pain.

    Perform eight to 10 repetitions of each exercise on each side of your body while maintaining a focus on good form and being able to breathe well. The instability of the paper plate is what creates the challenge. In each exercise, the side of your body that’s not using the paper plate is the stabilizing side, so that side will feel the burn of working harder to maintain balance.

    If you struggle with strength or balance limitations, start off by practicing the movements using the suggested modifications for each exercise.

    Place one foot on the paper plate and slide that leg back into a lunge position, bending your knee to gently tap it on the floor, if possible. The forward leg should also bend into a lunge position with your knee aligned above your ankle.

    Use the strength of your core and stabilizing front leg to return to standing. That’s one rep. Go through all reps on one side and then repeat on the other side.

    How to modify: Decrease how far back you slide and place a hand on a wall if balance is an issue.

    From a standing position, put one foot on the paper plate and perform a slide-out lateral lunge by sliding your foot out to the side while taking a half-squat position with your opposite leg. Keep your chest up, trying not to lean forward too much.

    As you perform a slide-out lateral lunge, focus on the standing leg that's stabilizing your movements and keep your chest high.

    Use the strength of your core and stabilizing leg to return to standing. Go through all reps on one side and then repeat on the other side.

    How to modify: If you aren’t strong enough to hold the half-squat position, you can put a chair under your hip to sit back on as you slide out your opposite leg. Place a hand on a wall if you need help with balance.

    From a plank position on the floor with your feet positioned a little wider than hip distance apart to help with counterbalance, place one of your hands on the paper plate. Maintaining a strong core and neutral spine, make circles with the plate on the floor.

    From a plank position, use the plate to make circles on the floor while keeping a strong core and neutral spine.

    Go as wide as your shoulder mobility will allow while still being able to stabilize. After making four circles in one direction, go in the other direction for another four circles. Switch to the other side and repeat the pattern of four circles in each direction.

    How to modify: If you feel your back arching, lower to your knees to make it a bit easier to engage your core and keep a neutral spine.

    From a plank position with your feet a little wider as noted above, place the toes of one foot on the paper plate. Just like you did with the shoulder circles, use your hip mobility to draw circles with your foot.

    Use your hip mobility to draw circles with your foot — just as you did with the shoulder circles.

    Make four circles in one direction and four in the other direction, then repeat with the other leg.

    How to modify: You can lower to the knee of your stabilizing leg if you have difficulty maintaining a neutral spine. If you struggle to make a circular motion, try a mountain climber forward-back motion instead.

    Try a mountain climber forward-back motion if you have trouble making a circular motion.

    Depending on your current fitness level and how you feel while doing these exercises, do the four exercises sequentially through three to five rounds. You might be surprised by how exhausted you can get using just a paper plate! Be sure to take short breaks in between rounds to drink some water and catch your breath.

    To help you overcome the winter blues and strengthen your body — especially your core, I recommend doing this workout a few times per week. Once spring arrives, look for more opportunities to exercise outside.

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  • Rare blizzard warnings issued in Southern California as Midwest digs out from powerful winter storm | CNN

    Rare blizzard warnings issued in Southern California as Midwest digs out from powerful winter storm | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A slow-moving winter storm brought snow, rain and high winds to the West on Friday, prompting rare blizzard warnings in Southern California.

    In its first-ever blizzard warning, the National Weather Service in San Diego said the San Bernardino County mountains could see 3 to 5 feet of snow through Saturday morning.

    Blizzard warnings were also issued for Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Saturday afternoon. Up to 5 feet of snow is possible with some isolated areas seeing between 7 and 8 feet. The National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office issued its last blizzard warning on February 4, 1989.

    “This storm system will be unusually cold, and snow levels will be very low. In fact, areas very close to the Pacific Coast and also into the interior valleys that are not accustomed to seeing snow, may see some accumulating snowfall,” the National Weather Service said early Friday.

    “For Friday morning through Saturday afternoon, plan to hunker down and avoid travel. The worst impacts from flooding and blizzard conditions occur Friday afternoon through Saturday morning, when any non-essential or non-emergency travel should be postponed!” the San Diego weather service said.

    The National Weather Service on Friday afternoon issued a flash flood warning with a “considerable flash flood damage threat,” for Los Angeles and surrounding areas. This is the second highest level of flood warning from the NWS, only topped by a flood emergency.

    Over 6 million people are covered by the warning, including downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Burbank and Santa Barbara.

    “Flash flooding is already occurring…and is expected to worsen into the evening hours,” the NWS warning said.

    The weather service also warned that debris flows are likely from previous burn scars in the region.

    Up to 5 inches of rain could fall across lower elevations of the greater Los Angeles area while the mountains could see 6 inches. In the San Diego area, up to 3 inches of rain is possible in lower elevations while the mountains could get 7 inches.

    The storm has put more than 20 million people under flood watches and more than 30 million people under high wind alerts across Southern California – roughly two months after the state endured rounds of deadly flooding. The highest gusts in the warning areas could reach 75 mph.

    The storm system will impact Northern California early in the day Friday. Up to 6 inches of snow is possible across lower elevations and up to 3 feet could fall on the region’s highest peaks before conditions begin to improve by Friday evening as the storm slips to the south.

    The Sierra Nevada Mountains could see up to 6 feet of snow Friday into Saturday and in Nevada, a blizzard warning for northwestern Nye County will be in effect Friday morning through early Saturday.

    “Heavy snow, winds gusting as high as 60 mph, will cause zero visibility due to blowing and drifting snow,” the weather service warned.

    Snow has already hit the Santa Cruz Mountain, resident Ngugi Kihara told CNN on Friday.

    “We never seen this much snow up here,” Kihara said. “We woke up to it. It started yesterday but picked up a lot overnight. Lots of trees are falling and all the roads around us are closed. Power is out and has been mostly gone since Tuesday.”

    Children revel in the rare snowfall in Yucaipa with a view of the San Bernardino County mountains in California.

    Power outages were already adding up in California early Friday, with nearly 75,000 customers in the dark, largely in the northern region. That accounts for a small portion of the more than 820,000 power outages recorded nationwide as the day began, according to PowerOutage.us. The majority of the outages – nearly 720,000 – were in Michigan, where freezing rain and ice this week damaged utility lines and trees.

    The storm struck the West as a ferocious, multiday winter storm began to subside after wreaking havoc in several states across the West, northern Great Plains the Great Lakes region and New England.

    Several counties in Wyoming went into search-and-rescue mode after more than 40 inches of snow fell in the southern parts of the state over the course of several days and motorists were trapped in heavy snow, the state highway patrol said on Twitter.

    Ice covered tree branches are seen on the ground after a freezing ice storm in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on Thursday.

    Minneapolis, Minnesota, saw more than 13 inches in a three-day period this week. More than 160 vehicle crashes were reported statewide, and dozens of cars spun off roads Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Minnesota State Patrol said in a series of tweets.

    Minneapolis officials have declared a one-day snow emergency beginning Friday, and city crews have been plowing and treating streets.

    Since the storm began Monday evening, cumulative snowfall reached dozens of inches in some cities, including 48 inches in Battle Lake, Wyoming, 32 inches in Dupuyer, Montana, and 29 inches in Park City, Utah.

    But snow was not the storm’s only culprit. Severe icing was also a danger.

    Ann Arbor, Michigan, recorded 0.65 inches, while Fransville, Wisconsin, measured 0.75 inches of ice.

    And in New England, icy conditions likely contributed to a massive 15-vehicle pileup on the Massachusetts Turnpike Thursday night, according to a tweet by the Massachusetts State Police.

    The chain-reaction crash involved multiple personal vehicles and tractor trailers, officials said. Troopers, firefighters and EMS responded to the incident and multiple victims had to be transported to the hospital, according to the tweet.

    As northern regions of the country were measuring snowfall and ice accumulation, parts of the Southeast were experiencing record-high heat.

    More than 50 daily record highs were recorded in the Southeast Thursday.

    • St. Simons Island, Georgia, saw a high temperature of 88 degrees, an all-time February record.
    • Tupelo, Mississippi, reached a high temperature of 87 degrees, another an all-time February record. The previous record of 84 degrees was set Wednesday.
    • Raleigh, North Carolina, saw a high temperature of 85 degrees, which was an all-time February record. The previous record of 84 degrees was set in 1977.

    The dueling winter storm and southern heat wave created a stark 100-degree temperature difference between the Northern Rockies and the South earlier this week.

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  • Blizzards, snow and ice disrupt hundreds of US flights | CNN

    Blizzards, snow and ice disrupt hundreds of US flights | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Another day of harsh winter weather brought continued air travel misery across the United States on Thursday with hundreds of flights canceled and many more delayed by snow storms and plunging temperatures.

    As of 7:00 a.m. ET, some 748 airplane departures had been scrapped and 724 delayed within the US, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. The schedule disruptions come a day after more than 1,700 flights were dropped and and 6,700 delayed.

    Blizzards, snow dumps and ice have hit a huge swath of the western and northern US stretching from California to New York and New England, with much of the upper Midwest experiencing particularly heavy snowfalls. More than 60 million people were under winter weather alerts early Thursday.

    Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport was the worst affected with 132 departures and 94 arrivals struck off. Over the border in Canada, Toronto’s Pearson International airport was showing 68 departure and 55 arrival cancellations. Delta was the worst affected carrier, accounting for 198 of overall cancellations and 107 delays.

    Chicago O’Hare International, Boston Logan International, Portland International and Denver International were also showing significant impact.

    On Wednesday, Southwest Airlines issued winter weather waivers for about a dozen airports. Delta Air Lines has issued waivers for Upper Midwest winter weather and Rockies and Mountain regions winter weather. American Airlines and United have also issued winter weather waivers for travel this week.

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  • It’s never been this warm in February. Here’s why that’s not a good thing | CNN

    It’s never been this warm in February. Here’s why that’s not a good thing | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    As parts of the West and Northern US face a winter storm with blizzard conditions and significant snowfall, much of the rest of the country is experiencing a summer-like heat that has never been felt before during the month of February.

    More than 130 cities from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes could set new records for daily and monthly high temperatures this week. Highs will climb up to 80 degrees as far north as Ohio and West Virginia — certainly unusual, but becoming less so in the warming climate.

    Here’s a stark example: Before this decade, Charleston, West Virginia, had only hit 80 degrees before March three times in more than 100 years of record-keeping. But this week’s incredible warmth will mean that four of the last six years will have logged temperatures of 80 degrees, which is its normal high on June 1, in February.

    Record warmth in February — a time that’s supposed to still feel like winter — might not sound like such a bad thing, but its negative consequences spread across the plant world, sports, tourism and agriculture. And it is another clear sign that our planet is warming rapidly, experts say.

    “Whenever we get these events, we should always be thinking there’s the possibility or likelihood that human-induced climate change is increasing the likelihood of strange weather,” Richard Seager, climate researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, told CNN. “The more it goes on, the more they can bring such tremendous damage.”

    A satellite image taken on February 13 shows just around 7% of the Great Lakes are covered in ice -- significantly lower than average for this time of year.

    On the Great Lakes, ice coverage reached a record low for this time of the year — the same time that the annual maximum extent of ice usually occurs. As of last week, only 7% of the five freshwater lakes were covered in ice, a sharp difference from the 35 to 40% ice cover typically expected in mid-to-late February, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Great Lakes ice is on a downward trend, NOAA scientists report. A recent study found a 70% decline in the lakes’ ice cover between 1973 and 2017.

    The decline in Great Lakes ice each winter may not seem like it has any harmful impact, but that ice acts as a buffer for large, wind-driven waves in the winter, scientists have reported. Without the ice, the coastlines are more susceptible to erosion and flooding.

    Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, a research scientist at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan, said low ice coverage could also set the stage for another severe lake-effect snow storm like the one Buffalo, New York, experienced in December.

    “The moisture and heat from the lake surface water are absorbed into the atmosphere by storm systems, and then fall back to the ground as snow in the winter,” Fujisaki-Manome said in a statement.

    The Lake Champlain shoreline on February 16. The lake near the access area is covered with ice, but officials are warning anglers to stay off the lake because unseasonably warm temperatures have made it unsafe.

    The thin ice has already had deadly consequences in New England.

    At Vermont’s Lake Champlain, the annual ice fishing tournament was cancelled last weekend when three fishermen died after falling through the ice. One man’s body was found hours after he was expected to return home from the lake, while the other two died after their utility vehicle broke through the ice.

    Montpelier, Vermont, had its warmest January on record this year since 1948, with Burlington recording its fifth warmest January since 1884, according to the Burlington National Weather Service.

    Robert Wilson, a professor of geography and environment at Syracuse University, said the Northeast as a whole is now a “fast-warming region,” with winter seasons warming faster than summers due to the climate crisis.

    And he underscored how this trend is threatening some of New England’s most cherished winter activities.

    “In coming decades, winter — as most people understand it — will get shorter and warmer, with less snow and more rain,” Wilson said. “This poses a serious threat to winter recreation: snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing.”

    Daffodils bloom in Norfolk, Virginia, on Tuesday.

    Plants are blooming way earlier than usual across much of the country, a clear sign that spring is either right around the corner — or it has already arrived, in some places.

    “Spring is coming early in much of the Southern and Eastern US,” Brad Rippey, meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture, told CNN. “Here in the mid-Atlantic, that means everything from budding trees to crocuses in bloom to spring peepers making lots of noise — and in February, no less.”

    Many plants species — including daffodils, witch-hazel, forsythia and even cherry blossoms — are beginning to leaf out in the East. Theresa Crimmins, director of the USA National Phenology Network, said it’s the plants responding to very early warm temperatures.

    “Plants, especially those of temperate systems, respond to a number of cues in order to wake up in the spring, including exposure to chill in the winter, exposure to warmth in the spring, and day length,” she told CNN.

    Dead or dying peach trees at Carlson Orchards in Massachusetts. Temperatures dropped below freezing in recent weeks, after abnormal warmth in January, threatening the crop.

    If another cold snap occurs after an early warm spell, Crimmins said it could be disruptive and damaging for the plants’ cycle. As flower buds develop, many species lose their ability to tolerate cold temperatures, which means a freeze could kill blooms and leave fruit crops and other commodities vulnerable to spring freezes.

    Rippey said warm winters followed by a spring freeze has become more common in recent years. In 2017, for instance, a severe spring freeze in March damaged several fruit crops — peaches, blueberries, apples and strawberries — in states including Georgia and South Carolina, which carried an economic toll of roughly $1.2 billion.

    “As nice as it feels to have temperatures in the 70s and 80s this time of year, the fact that it’s not ‘normal’ can have a profound impact on the ecosystem,” Rippey said. “Even a typical spring freeze can damage commercial and back-yard fruit crops that have been pushed into blooming by late-winter warmth.”

    India issued its first heatwave alert, with temperatures in some states reaching 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) – up to 9 degrees Celsius (16.2 Fahrenheit) above normal, according to data released by the India Meteorological Department on Monday.

    “The heatwave warnings as early as February is a scary situation,” Krishna AchutaRao, a professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, told CNN.

    It has raised fears of a repeat of last year’s deadly heatwave, which scorched swaths of India and Pakistan.

    Blistering heat has devastating consequences for people’s health, for water supplies and for crops; last year, crop yields were reduced by as much as a third in some parts of the country. As temperatures soared last spring, India banned exports of wheat, dashing hopes that the world’s second-largest wheat producer would fill the supply gap caused by the war in Ukraine.

    Commuters cover their faces with clothes to protect themselves from sun as temperatures soar in Hyderabad, India, on Wednesday.

    This February, with high temperatures hitting wheat-producing states, including Rajasthan and Gujarat, India has set up a committee to monitor the impact of rising temperatures on the crop, according to Reuters.

    Europe, too, has seen unusually high temperatures, kicking off 2023 with an extreme winter heatwave that broke January temperature records in several countries. Low levels of snow and rainfall have fueled concerns about the region’s rivers and lakes.

    The River Po, which winds through northern Italy’s agricultural heartland, fed by snow from the Alps and rainfall in the spring, is at very low levels, while water in Lake Garda in northern Italy has reached record lows. There are fears Italy, which declared a state of emergency last year after its worst drought in 70 years, may face another drought.

    The unusually warm weather has also left ski resorts across the Alps with little or no snow. In February, top skiers wrote an open letter to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation demanding action on the climate crisis.

    “The seasons have shifted,” they wrote. “Our sport is threatened existentially.”

    While ski resorts have adapted to warming by relying on artificial snow – a process that uses a lot of water and energy – Wilson noted that resorts would still need cold nighttime temperatures to make it.

    “The long-term survival of skiing and other winter recreation will depend on nations lowering their carbon emissions to avoid the more dire consequences and severe warming in the future,” he said.

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  • Winter is more than halfway over, and many Northeast cities still await their first snow day | CNN

    Winter is more than halfway over, and many Northeast cities still await their first snow day | CNN

    Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared in the weekly weather newsletter, the CNN Weather Brief, which is released every Monday. You can sign up here to receive them every week and during significant storms.



    CNN
     — 

    While the western US has been piling up snowfall over the past several weeks, it has been the complete opposite across the Northeast and New England.

    We are more than halfway through meteorological winter, which runs from December through February, and cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC have yet to see measurable snow, defined as at least 0.1 inches.

    And it’s not just the coastal cities. Many locations across interior New England and the Northeast are seeing significantly below normal snowfall to date.

    “With the exception of some areas downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and very small areas of interior New England, the East is certainly in a snow drought with some locations that normally have snow, down by as much as one to more than three feet,” the Weather Prediction Center Branch Chief Greg Carbin told CNN.

    Buffalo, New York was inundated with several feet of heavy snowfall earlier this winter.

    Carbin went on to explain there are two types of snow drought:

    • The first type is when there is an overall lack of winter precipitation, rain or snow, which contributes to drought conditions.
    • The second type is when overall precipitation amounts are near normal but instead of falling as snow, it falls mostly as rain.

    “Along the I-95 corridor from DC to Boston, the latter type of snow drought has been measured so far this winter,” Carbin said. “Precipitation amounts have been normal to slightly above normal, but it’s generally been too warm for precipitation to fall in the form of snow.”

    The period between snow events is likely to increase as the climate warms, and it may be especially true for coastal Northeastern cities. As the Northeast temperatures warm, the rain-snow line shifts farther north, leading to more rainy winter day along the coast and less snow, according to the US National Climate Assessment.

    And it’s not just the Northeast, winter (December, January, February) is also the fastest-warming season for 75% of 238 US locations, according to Climate Central’s data analysis.

    319

    Central Park in New York City has gone 319 days without measurable snow through Sunday, which currently ties for their third-longest streak. Central Park would have to be snowless through February 5, 2023, to break the record streak of 332 days set back in 2020.

    316

    Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC have all gone 316 days without measurable snow through Sunday, which rank 6th, 12th, and 19th respectively.

    1973

    Central Park is also approaching the latest date in the season for their first measurable snowfall since record keeping began in 1869.

    “The current record is Jan. 29, 1973, which went on to become the least-snowy winter in NYC history, with just 2.8 inches total snow accumulation,” Carbin said.

    “The pattern has been fairly consistent with the typical La Nina pattern across the Northeastern US so far this winter,” meaning the track of the storms and cold air have remained to the north and west of the Northeast, meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in New York City told CNN.

    Watch: Meteorologist Jennifer Gray explains the effects of La Niña

    La Niña, the counterpart of El Niño, is characterized by below-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator, a result of shifting wind patterns in the atmosphere, which has a direct effect on weather seen across the US in the winter.

    “There are of course variations in this pattern due to short term factors that are not predictable more than one to two weeks in advance, such as the arctic outbreak during Christmas,” the weather service office in New York City said. “But these variations have been brief.”

    The most active weather and heaviest snowfall in recent weeks have been focused across the West and California, where more than 15 feet of snow have fallen across portions of the Sierras from December 26, 2022, through January 17, 2023.

    “While the jet stream meanders and can occasionally quickly change to support snowstorms just about anywhere during the winter, this winter has been quite active across the West, with a weak but broad area of high pressure (and warmer than average temperatures) over the eastern 2/3rds of the contiguous United States,” Carbin said.

    There is a chance Central Park could see some light accumulating snow Wednesday but there is still some uncertainty in the forecast, the weather service office in New York City said.

    If the city does not see snow this week, their streak will stay alive. After Wednesday, the weather service is currently forecasting dry conditions through January 29.

    “We need to make up the whole seasonal snowfall since none has accumulated, which is 29.8 inches,” the weather service office in New York City said. “The record storm total snowfall is 27.5 inches on January 22 to 24, 2016, so that is very close to our seasonal snowfall. All it may take is one storm to get us back on track.”

    While this scenario is certainly possible, it is not very likely. There have only been seven storms on record to dump 20 inches of snow or more across Central Park in recorded history, according to the weather service.

    “February and March are months in which big snows have fallen in the cities of the Northeast, so there remains some hope for snow lovers,” Carbin said. “Although, the later in the season you get started, the more likely you are to finish the season with lackluster snowfall.”

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  • As Buffalo officers fan out to perform welfare checks, harrowing accounts emerge of those who died in the storm | CNN

    As Buffalo officers fan out to perform welfare checks, harrowing accounts emerge of those who died in the storm | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    As police in Buffalo, New York, sifted through 911 and welfare check calls dating back to the earlier days of the deadly winter storm, harrowing accounts of those lost in the storm have emerged.

    Among the victims was Monique Alexander, a 52-year-old mother who died in the Buffalo storm, her daughter Casey Maccarone said. Alexander had rushed out of the house as conditions were worsening, saying she would be right back, Maccarone said.

    Two hours later, when she had not returned, her daughter said she posted on a Buffalo blizzard Facebook group asking if anyone had seen her mom. Just minutes later, a stranger messaged her and asked to call her, Maccarone said.

    “He just instantly broke down crying,” Maccarone said. “He was stranded as well and he was walking down the street and he saw her in the snow. So he picked her up and he placed her under the awning … so that she wouldn’t get snowed on anymore.”

    “Her grand kids were waiting for her to come home. We were waiting for her to come home,” Maccarone said.

    The death toll in Erie County, New York, climbed to 37 by Tuesday evening as first responders went door-to-door and car-to-car checking on people they couldn’t reach days ago, when a blizzard swept through the area, trapping residents and snarling emergency response during the holiday weekend.

    It took until Wednesday evening for Buffalo Police to announce they were done following up on the unanswered 911 and welfare check calls – which at some point reached 1,100 calls, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia said.

    Some officers checking on residents arrived to find that, in some cases, they were too late.

    “It’s a grueling, gruesome task that they had to do,” Gramaglia said. “They recovered a substantial amount of bodies and it’s terrible.”

    Some people have been found dead in cars, on streets or in snowbanks, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said.

    Among the storm’s victims is Anndel Taylor, 22, whose family said she was found dead in Buffalo over the holiday weekend after getting trapped in her car by the blizzard.

    After losing contact with her, her family also posted her location to a private Facebook page related to the storm to ask for help, and a man called to say he had found her without a pulse, her sister said.

    Also among the fatalities was 46-year-old Melissa Morrison, a Buffalo mother of two whose body was found in the snow near a Tim Horton’s, her mother Linda Addeo told CNN.

    Addeo had worried about her daughter after her son came across social media posts on Friday about a body that was found near the coffee shop that Morrison lived by, she said.

    On Tuesday, the coroner’s office informed the family that the same body was positively identified as that of Morrison, Addeo said.

    Another storm-related death involved a 26-year-old man, Abdul Sharifu, who left to get provisions for a family who asked for his help on Saturday morning, his cousin Ally Sharifu told CNN.

    His wife – who is pregnant and days away from giving birth – woke up that evening to find him gone. After sharing a photo of the missing man on Facebook in a desperate attempt to find him, the family got a call about a man who was found lying on the street and rushed to a children’s hospital, Ally Sharifu said.

    Ally Sharifu said he ended up identifying his cousin’s body at a hospital the next morning. Abdul Sharifu and his cousin are refugees from Congo who were resettled in the US in 2017 after they lived for about five years in a refugee camp in Burundi, Ally Sharifu said.

    “The stories are heartbreaking, just heartbreaking,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said.

    The police commissioner said he expects that rising temperatures in the coming days will melt the snow and uncover more storm victims. Officers will be out on Thursday searching in areas where bodies were reported but never found, Gramaglia said.

    The winter storm’s grim effects have been widespread, with reports of fatalities stretching beyond New York and across 11 other US states. There have in total been least 62 storm-related deaths reported nationwide, and they mainly involved weather-related traffic accidents or fatalities related to the cold.

    Ohio confirmed 9 weather-related deaths, Colorado recorded 2 deaths, Kansas and Kentucky confirmed 3 deaths each, South Carolina confirmed 2 deaths, and Missouri, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin each recorded one storm-related death.

    Sha'Kyra Aughtry helps a man she found stranded in the snow in Buffalo

    As emergency services were restored in Buffalo, the New York National Guard said they made at least 86 rescues, including getting a woman to the hospital just before she gave birth.

    Police were also back out, making ten arrests in Buffalo as of Wednesday in connection with suspected winter storm looting, the police commissioner said in a Wednesday news conference.

    But, Mayor Brown stressed, “This is a minority of individuals.”

    “In typical ‘city of good neighbors’ fashion, people have come together – they’ve assisted each other. Neighbors have helped neighbors. Friends have helped friends, and members of this community have helped people that they have never met before,” the mayor said Wednesday.

    One Buffalo woman, Sha’Kyra Aughtry, said she looked out her window on Christmas Eve to find a frostbitten man calling for help in the frigid cold.

    Her boyfriend carried the man, 64-year-old Joe White, into the house, and she used a blow dryer to melt the ice off his red and blistered hands, Aughtry said.

    After she called 911 and no one came to help, Aughtry said, she took to Facebook to plead for assistance and ended up getting White to the hospital with help from good Samaritans who came and snowplowed them out, she said.

    Social media also proved useful when a woman went into labor two days before Christmas.

    When Erica Thomas began having contractions, the snow from the winter storm had piled up about halfway up the front door of her Buffalo home and she and her husband, Davon Thomas, couldn’t get out.

    The soon-to-be father called 911 for help and was told they’d attempt to get an emergency vehicle there as soon as possible. He was later told responders had attempted to get to their house but couldn’t.

    Davon Thomas called a friend who made a post for the couple on a Buffalo Facebook group, asking for help and the couple ended up getting in touch with Raymonda Reynolds, an experienced doula of five years.

    Reynolds and her friend, doula and nurse Iva Blackburn, got on a video call with the couple and guided them through delivering the baby and cutting the umbilical cord.

    “We started screaming like it was a Buffalo Bills touchdown,” Reynolds said, describing the moment the baby girl was born. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve been a part of.”

    In another act of kindness, a Buffalo barbershop owner, Craig Elston, ended up opening his store for people to seek refuge from the storm. “A lot of people slept in the barber chairs a lot of people put the chairs together,” Elston said.

    “I was just thinking about just keeping people warm. It was really that simple,” he said.

    Vehicles drive down Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo on Wednesday, December 28, 2022.

    After six days of restrictions on traveling while road conditions were unsafe, Buffalo is lifting its winter storm driving ban at midnight Thursday and replacing it with a travel advisory, Poloncarz announced.

    The driving ban had been in place in Buffalo since Friday morning.

    “We still have a ways to go but we have come a long way in just a couple of days. This will allow our residents to get back to work – allow them to get to supermarkets, pharmacies, and to get to medical appointments,” Mayor Brown said.

    Poloncarz was asked Wednesday about the timing of the driving ban, and whether there had been discussion among officials about issuing it earlier.

    Officials started discussing a potential ban Thursday, Poloncarz said, but they initially believed the snow band wouldn’t reach the Erie County until 10 a.m. the next morning.

    On Friday morning, temperatures “dropped dramatically,” but whiteout conditions didn’t hit until about 10 a.m., he noted, after the ban was issued.

    “If anyone is to be blamed, you can blame me. I’m the one who has to make the final call on behalf of the county,” Poloncarz said.

    Poloncarz also criticized how Buffalo’s mayor has handled storm cleanup efforts, saying Brown has not been on daily coordination calls with other municipalities and that the city has been slow to reopen.

    When asked about those remarks, the mayor told CNN, “I’m not concerned about those comments, my concern is for the residents of the city of Buffalo.”

    Hundreds of pieces of equipment were plowing and hauling snow on Wednesday, and most streets were passable in Buffalo by the evening, Brown announced in a Wednesday evening update.

    As temperatures warm up, there have been concerns about a possible “rapid melt” leading to flooding, Erie County officials said.

    The Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Daniel J. Neaverth, Jr. said they feel “very comfortable” in their positioning to be able to handle potential flooding.

    “We have an ample supply ready to go ready to be deployed with personnel in the event that we have some type of flooding,” Neaverth said.

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  • Crews work to clear snow-covered roads for emergency responders in Buffalo after storm that left 31 dead in area | CNN

    Crews work to clear snow-covered roads for emergency responders in Buffalo after storm that left 31 dead in area | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Emergency services have been restored in Buffalo, New York, officials said, as crews continue to clear roads and first responders check on people they couldn’t reach days ago when a deadly winter storm swept the nation.

    At least 31 people have died in New York’s Erie County, where Buffalo was buried with nearly 52 inches of snow, trapping residents at home – many without heat as the Christmas weekend blizzard took out power lines. At least 25 others across 11 US states also have been reported dead in the storm.

    A driving ban remains in effect Wednesday in Buffalo amid a two-day effort to clear at least one lane on every street to accommodate emergency responders, according to the city and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. They’re still hampered, though, by hundreds of vehicles abandoned in the snow, hazardous driving conditions and snow-covered lanes, with emergency and recovery vehicles still getting stuck, Poloncarz spokesperson Peter Anderson said Tuesday.

    The county is bringing in 100 military police, plus New York State Police, to manage traffic control “because it has become so evident that too many people are ignoring the (driving) ban,” Poloncarz said. Officials also are working to coordinate deliveries of fuel to emergency crews and grocery supplies to markets, he said.

    “It’s the reason why you need to stay off the road in these impacted areas, because we need to be able to get those resources to where they need to be so that the shelves are in fact stocked and ready to go,” Poloncarz said.

    Meantime, Buffalo is bracing for possible flooding as rising temperatures being to melt the massive amount of snow and 2 inches of rain is forecast through the weekend. The flood risk is small, the National Weather Service said.

    For now, authorities are focusing on welfare checks and getting people to hospitals after hundreds of calls for help went unanswered as the storm slammed the area, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia has said.

    Amid the frigid, whiteout conditions, “people … got stranded in their vehicles and passed away in their cars. We have people that were walking during blizzard conditions and passed away on the street, passed away in snowbanks,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. “And we have people that were found that passed away in their homes.”

    At least one reported death in Erie County has been attributed to an EMS delay, Poloncarz told CNN on Tuesday. “Our emergency responders could not get to the person because of the snow,” he said. “They were blocked, and by the time they got there it was too late.”

    This storm marked the first time the Buffalo Fire Department could not respond to emergency calls because of severe conditions, Poloncarz said, citing the agency’s historian. Two-thirds of the equipment dispatched to help clear winter snow during the height of the storm also got stuck, he said.

    The blizzard – which Gov. Kathy Hochul called a “once-in-a-generation storm” – has drawn many comparisons to Buffalo’s infamous blizzard of 1977 – a powerful storm that left 23 people dead.

    “The blizzard of ’77 is considered the worst storm in Buffalo history,” Poloncarz said Monday. “Well, unfortunately, this has already surpassed it for deaths.”

    Anndel Taylor, 22, was found dead in Buffalo over the holiday weekend after getting trapped in her car by the blizzard, her family said.

    After losing contact with her, the family posted her location to a private Facebook page related to the storm to ask for help, and a man called to say he had found her without a pulse, her sister said.

    The winter storm’s grim effects have been widespread, with at least 56 storm-related deaths reported across several states:

    • New York: In addition to the 31 deaths in Erie County, one fatal carbon monoxide poisoning was reported in Niagara County.

    • Colorado: Police in Colorado Springs reported two deaths related to the cold since Thursday, with one man found near a building’s power transformer, possibly seeking warmth, and another in a camp in an alleyway.

    • Kansas: Three people died in weather-related traffic accidents, the Highway Patrol said Friday.

    • Kentucky: Three people died, officials have said, including one involved in a vehicle crash in Montgomery County.

    • Missouri: One person died after a van slid off an icy road and into a frozen creek, Kansas City police said.

    • New Hampshire: A hiker was found dead in Franconia on Christmas morning, said Lt. James Kneeland, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

    • Ohio: Nine people died as a result of weather-related auto crashes, including four in a Saturday morning crash on Interstate 75 when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and collided with an SUV and a pickup, authorities said.

    • South Carolina: Two men – including a 91-year-old who went outside on Christmas Day to fix a broken water pipe – died due to the storm in Anderson County, the coroner’s office there said. The other victim died on Christmas Eve after his home lost power.

    • Tennessee: The Department of Health on Friday confirmed one storm-related fatality.

    • Vermont: One woman in Castleton died after a tree fell on her home, according to the police chief.

    • Wisconsin: The State Patrol on Thursday reported one fatal crash due to winter weather.

    A New York state trooper car blocks the entrance to Route 198 on Tuesday after a winter storm in Buffalo.

    With flooding possible in Buffalo, crews are focused on clearing key snowbanks, officials said. Still, “it should take around an inch of rain from this system before flooding becomes a concern,” the weather service said.

    City leaders are working with the National Weather Service “not only to reflect back on what happened this past week but also what potentially could come,” Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services’ Daniel Neaverth said.

    All major highways across Western New York, including New York State Thruway, had reopened by Tuesday – “a sign that we are finally turning the corner on this once-in-a-generation storm,” Hochul said.

    Buffalo got another 1.6 inches of snow on Tuesday, bringing the total since Friday to 51.9 inches and the December total to 64.7 inches, the weather service said. Overall, Buffalo has gotten 101.6 inches this winter season, CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford said.

    Conditions are improving and the lake-effect snowfall has finally stopped, he noted. Warm temperatures are forecast for at least the next week, with Buffalo due for highs in the upper 30s on Wednesday and the 40s through the weekend.

    Officials also have responded to a few reports of looting. Eight people had been arrested in Buffalo through Tuesday evening in connection with suspected winter storm looting, according to a tweet from the Buffalo Police Department.

    “It is horrible that while residents of our community have died in this storm that people are out looting,” the mayor said, but noted, “This is a minority of individuals.”

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  • Here are the places that received some of the most snow in the winter storm | CNN

    Here are the places that received some of the most snow in the winter storm | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A perilous and prolonged winter storm that barreled across the nation over the past week brought heavy snow and blizzard conditions to parts of the US, as a major arctic blast plunged temperatures to dangerous levels in much of the country.

    More than half the US population went through a Christmas weekend under wind chill alerts.

    The brutal winter conditions buried communities in snow, knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, shuttered highways, snarled holiday travel, forced hundreds of rescues and prompted emergency declarations.

    As it moved over the Great Lakes, the storm became a “bomb cyclone,” bringing blizzard and winter weather alerts along with whiteout conditions. New York state in particular saw heavy snowfall that stranded even emergency vehicles and caused widespread outages.

    Here are the places that received some of the highest snow totals from this winter storm:

    Buffalo: 49.2 inches in three days

    The city in western New York got a whopping 55.8 inches of snow this month. The last time Buffalo has received this much snow in a monthly period was back in December 2001, with a whopping 82.7 inches.

    Watertown: 41.1 inches in three days

    Another city in New York, Watertown, was pummeled with snow as lake effect bands moved over the area, bringing dangerous blizzard conditions.

    Copenhagen: 30.1 inches in three days

    Near Watertown, Copenhagen, a village in New York’s Lewis County, was buried in snow. Driving conditions were so difficult that even snowplows had a tough time navigating the roads, CNN affiliate WWNY reported.

    Sault Ste. Marie: 10.9 inches in one day

    The Michigan area set a daily maximum snowfall record with 10.9 inches of snow on Sunday. This beats the old record of 8 inches received back on December 25, 1992.

    Grand Rapids: 10.5 inches in one day

    A record snowfall of 10.5 inches fell at Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, breaking the previous record of 7.5 inches set in 1993.

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  • A prolonged winter storm delivers power outages, snarled travel and frigid temperatures on Christmas Day | CNN

    A prolonged winter storm delivers power outages, snarled travel and frigid temperatures on Christmas Day | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A nearly weeklong winter storm blasting much of the US has plunged temperatures to life-threatening lows, brought blizzards and floods, and left more than a quarter million people without power on Christmas Day.

    Blizzard conditions continue across the Great Lakes, while frigid cold temperatures grip the eastern two-thirds of the US, with some major cities in the Southeast, Midwest and East Coast recording their coldest Christmas in decades.

    Large areas of the central and eastern US remain under wind chill warnings and advisories, as freeze warnings are in effect across the South.

    New York City saw record cold temperatures on Christmas Eve at several locations, including its JFK and LaGuardia airports. The high at Central Park was 15 degrees, marking its second-coldest December 24 in at least 150 years, according to the National Weather Service.

    At least 22 deaths have been attributed to dangerous weather conditions since Wednesday, and some residents in the Northeast are spending the holiday without sufficient heat or hot water as extremely cold temperatures persist.

    Across the US, 275,856 homes and businesses in the US had no electricity service as of 1 a.m. ET, many of them in Maine and New York, according to PowerOutage.us. Since the start of the storm the number of outages has at times exceeded a million customers.

    A power grid operator for at least 13 states in the country’s eastern half asked customers to conserve power and set thermostats lower than usual from early Saturday to 10 a.m. on Sunday because usage was straining capacity.

    The operator, PJM Interconnection, serves about 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and warned rolling blackouts could happen if the strain becomes too much.

    In New York, utility companies Con Edison and Natural Grid US also urged customers to conserve energy, citing extreme weather conditions and increased energy demand on interstate pipelines carrying natural gas into the city.

    Meanwhile, a shortage of electricity in Texas prompted the US Department of Energy to declare an emergency Friday, allowing the state’s energy provider to exceed environmental emissions standards until energy usage drops.

    In Jackson, Mississippi, frigid temperatures are hampering efforts to repair a large water main break late Saturday, which has caused a loss in water pressure for residents, city officials said.

    “We are grateful to the crews who are braving these frigid temperatures on this Christmas Eve night, while working to restore pressure to residents. Their sacrifice does not go unnoticed and is appreciated not only by this administration, but also by every resident who is affected,” the release stated.

    The brutal weather conditions have also snarled travel during the busy holiday weekend, with more than 5,000 flights canceled Friday, more than 3,400 flights canceled Saturday, and more than 1,000 canceled for Christmas Day.

    Conditions on the road weren’t any better in parts of the country amid whiteout conditions and icy and snow-covered roadways.

    In New York’s Erie County – which is seeing blistering blizzard conditions – about 500 motorists found themselves stranded in their vehicles Friday night into Saturday morning, despite a county driving ban put in place during the storm, according to County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

    National Guard troops were called in to help “rescue people that are stuck in vehicles,” and to give rides to medical workers so they could relieve colleagues who had been working at hospitals for more than a day, Poloncarz said.

    In Seattle, Washington, online videos have documented cars sliding on the icy roads and bumping into each and residents slipping as they walked on sidewalks, CNN affiliate KOMO reported.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she will ask the federal government for a declaration of emergency after a blistering winter storm.

    “I’ll be asking the federal government for a declaration of emergency that’ll allow us to seek reimbursements for the extraordinary expenses of all the overtime and the fact that we brought in mutual aid from other parts of the state,” Hochul said to reporters Saturday. “We’ve deployed individuals – the utility crews have come but also making sure that we have all the vehicles we need.”

    New York’s three storm-related deaths were reported in Erie County. Two died in separate incidents Friday night when emergency medical personnel could not get to their homes in time for medical emergencies, Poloncarz said Saturday morning. Details about the third death, confirmed by a county spokesperson Saturday afternoon, weren’t immediately available.

    “The loss of two lives in Buffalo – storm related – because people were not able to get to medical attention, is again a crisis situation that unfolds before your eyes and you realize that lifesaving ambulances and emergency medical personnel cannot get to people during a blizzard situation,” Hochul added.

    Other storm-related deaths have been reported in the country. They include:

    • Colorado: Police in Colorado Springs, Colorado, reported two deaths related to the cold since Thursday, with one man found near a power transformer of a building possibly looking for warmth, and another in a camp in an alleyway.

    • Kansas: Three people have died in weather-related traffic accidents, the Kansas Highway Patrol said Friday.

    • Kentucky: Three people have died in the state, officials have said, including one involving a vehicle accident in Montgomery County.

    • Missouri: One person died after a caravan slid off an icy road and into a frozen creek, Kansas City police said.

    • Ohio: Eight people have died as a result of weather-related auto accidents, including four in a Saturday morning crash on Interstate 75, when a semi tractor-trailer crossed the median and collided with an SUV and a pickup, authorities said.

    • Tennessee: The Tennessee Department of Health on Friday confirmed one storm-related fatality.

    • Wisconsin: Wisconsin State Patrol on Thursday reported one fatal crash due to winter weather.

    In pictures: Winter storm impacts the US


    The storm system is forecast to gradually weaken as it lifts into southeastern Canada, moving slowly during the next couple of days and pulling arctic air from Canada down into much of the eastern side of the country.

    The Arctic blast being felt across the eastern two-thirds of the nation will slowly moderate into Monday, but dangerous conditions will persist Christmas Day.

    The cold temperatures combined with dangerous wind chills will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers who become stranded, people who work outside, livestock and pets, according to the National Weather Service.

    “In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes,” the Weather Service warned.

    As the frigid air continues to blast the warm waters of the Great Lakes, lake-effect snows and blizzard conditions are expected to continue, but slowly become less intense.

    Still, strong gusty winds initially up to 60 mph accompanying the snow downwind from the Great Lakes will continue to make for extremely dangerous conditions on the road.

    By Christmas night into Monday, another low pressure system coming from the Pacific will deliver the next surge of moisture toward the Pacific Northwest and then into northern California, according to the Weather Service.

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  • A powerful winter storm claims at least 11 lives across the US as temperatures plunge, winds howl and power lines fall | CNN

    A powerful winter storm claims at least 11 lives across the US as temperatures plunge, winds howl and power lines fall | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Hundreds of thousands of Americans are waking up in the dark to unlit trees on Christmas Eve, after destructive winds and heavy snow from a winter storm tore down power lines and endangered drivers across the country, killing at least 11 people in its path.

    As bone-chilling temperatures continue to grip the US this holiday weekend, the unrelenting storm is pummeling the Midwest and parts of the East with heavy snow, blizzard conditions and even flooding along the Northeast coast. No letup is in sight until the end of Christmas Day.

    Related: Follow live updates

    At least 11 people have died since Wednesday across four states, a result of how dangerous and life-threatening conditions have been this week over a large swath of the country.

    Three people died in separate car crashes in north-central Kansas on Wednesday, Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Candice Breshears said. All three deaths are confirmed to have been weather-related, Breshears noted.

    In Kansas City, Missouri, one person died after losing control of their vehicle on icy roads Thursday afternoon, according to the Kansas City Police Department. The vehicle “went down the embankment, over the cement retaining wall and landed upside down” into a creek, police said in a statement.

    Four people died in car crashes in Ohio, where others were also injured, Gov. Mike DeWine said.

    Kentucky reported three deaths caused by the storm: Two in car crashes and another was a person who was unhoused in Louisville, Gov. Andy Beshear said. The man’s body was found outside with no obvious signs of trauma – an autopsy is required to determine the cause of death, police said.

    For days, forecasters and officials have been sounding the alarm on the grim conditions the storm promised to bring, while imploring drivers to stay off the icy, snow-covered roads and other travelers to alter holiday plans for optimal safety.

    “Remember your loved ones care more about having you alive and that next Christmas than whether you can make this one,” Beshear told CNN Friday.

    “People need to stay off the roads. … Being together is more important than ever, but staying safe is even more important than that,” Beshear added.

    The ominous warning comes as the storm continues to bear down with blizzard conditions from the Great Lakes and interior Northeast, bringing the double threat of heavy snow and speedy winds.

    Hundreds of drivers across multiple states, including New York, South Dakota and Minnesota were stranded this week and needed rescuing. Some states have closed major highways to deter drivers from getting behind the wheel. Plus, more than 5,000 flights were canceled Friday, and more than 10,000 were delayed.

    To make matters worse, even if snowfall stops or slows down, whiteout conditions are likely because winds are forecast to near or surpass 60 mph, resulting in damage and more power outages.

    “If you do lose power, it is going to be dangerously cold,” said Jackie Bray, the commissioner of New York’s Homeland Security and Emergency Services, adding people should seek warming shelters provided by some counties. “Please don’t assume that you can weather this cold overnight without heat. You may not be able to.”

    So far, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses have no electricity, according to PowerOutage.US, which means millions of residents likely do not have proper heating or hot water as extremely cold temperatures persist Saturday.

    New Hampshire, New York and Virginia each have more than 50,000 outages as of early Saturday, while more than 240,000 outages are reported in Maine, the website shows.

    In pictures: Winter storm impacts the US


    Here’s what else you can expect this Christmas Eve:

    • The cold is coming for many: More than 175 million people are under wind chill alerts from across much of the central and eastern US. “The life-threatening Cold Temperatures and Dangerous wind chills will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded,” the National Weather Service said.
    • Record temps in the South: Atlanta and Tallahassee, Florida, are forecast to have their coldest high temperature ever recorded on December 24, according to the weather service.
    • Brutal cold elsewhere: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will also see their coldest day Christmas Eve ever on Saturday. Washington, DC, could see its second-coldest on Christmas Eve, the first being in 1989. New York is set to experience its coldest Christmas Eve since 1906. Chicago is expecting temperatures to rebound above zero but will still experience its coldest Christmas Eve since 1983.
    • Flooding threats persist: Both coastal and inland flooding risks are in store for the Northeast from heavy rain falling onto a melting snowpack. Moderate to isolated major coastal flooding is possible due to strong onshore winds.

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  • A least 9 dead as massive winter storm leaves more than a million without power and bitter cold across much of US | CNN

    A least 9 dead as massive winter storm leaves more than a million without power and bitter cold across much of US | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A massive winter storm battered the US on Friday with frigid temperatures, high winds and heavy snow, leaving at least nine people dead, knocking out power to over a million customers and wrecking holiday plans from coast to coast.

    The storm – expected to intensify throughout Friday as it barrels through the Midwest and East – is making for grim road conditions with poor visibility and ice-covered streets. Coastal flooding is also an issue, particularly along the shorelines of the Northeast.

    All modes of travel – planes, trains and automobiles – were being disrupted: There were hundreds of miles of road closures and flight cancellations were growing rapidly. In New York, flooding along the Long Island Rail Road forced part of the Long Beach branch to temporarily shut down.

    Related: Follow live updates

    “Christmas is canceled,” said Mick Saunders, a Buffalo, New York, resident who was two hours into blizzard conditions that are expected to last through Sunday morning. “All family and friends agreed it’s safer this way.”

    At least 9 deaths have been reported since Wednesday.

    In north-central Kansas, three people were killed in separate car crashes on Wednesday evening; one death was confirmed to be weather-related, and two were believed to be weather-related but need more investigation, according to Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Candice Breshears.

    In Kansas City, one person died after losing control of their Dodge Caravan on icy roads Thursday afternoon, according to the Kansas City Police Department. “The Dodge went down the embankment, over the cement retaining wall and landed upside down, submerged in Brush Creek,” police said in a statement.

    In Kentucky, three people died due to the storm, including two in vehicle crashes and the other a “housing insecure” person in Louisville, Gov. Andy Beshear said. The man’s body was found outside with no obvious signs of trauma and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, police said.

    And in Ohio, four people have died “as a result of weather-related auto accidents” and several others have been injured, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.

    Life threatening cold has pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border, with below zero wind chills reported as far south as Austin and Atlanta. Many locations in the eastern US are in for their coldest Christmas Eve in decades as the Arctic blast reaches its peak.

    About 1.2 million customers in the US are experiencing power outages amid the winter weather and frigid temperatures, according to the website PowerOutage.US. Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania have the most outages.

    In pictures: Winter storm impacts the US


    In all, more than 200 million people in the US were under wind chill alerts from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and from Washington state to Florida, with below-zero wind chills expected in the Southeast by Friday. Other winter weather alerts are in effect for blizzard conditions, ice, snow as well as flooding.

    “The National Weather Service’s Watch Warning graphic depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” the agency said Thursday.

    Notably, parts of Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming have already seen wind chills below minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the past two days.

    The entire state of Texas was seeing temperatures below freezing by early Friday afternoon, according to weather observations from around the state.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned residents about the “epic, statewide hazard” of winter weather.

    “I called it a kitchen sink storm because it is throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink,” Hochul said at a press conference Friday afternoon. “We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that mother nature could wallop at us this weekend.”

    For Brian Trzeciak, the storm was “living up to the warnings” at his home in Hamburg, New York. Buffalo’s airport, just to the north, reported zero visibility shortly after noon on Friday.

    “Whiteout conditions, frigid temperatures, and the waves are like what you would see during a hurricane,” he told CNN.

    He and his family decided to cancel their Christmas plans because of the dangers from the storm.

    “My mother lives about 30 minutes away and so does my sister and her family, in the other direction,” he said. “We always get together for Christmas Eve and Christmas, but we’re all hunkering down in our houses until it all stops on Monday.”

    Driving bans are in place in Erie, Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties in Western New York because of whiteout conditions.

    As many as 250 people could be stranded in their cars in Erie County in a situation that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said put first responders at unnecessary risk. Brown told CNN Friday night that forecasts call for 36 to 48 inches of snow. The area has had wind gusts of 79 mph.

    Many will experience a cold holiday unlike any other: Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tallahassee, Florida, are all forecast to have their coldest high temperature ever recorded on December 24, according to the National Weather Service.

    Washington DC is forecast to see its second coldest Christmas Eve, only behind 1989. In New York, it will be the coldest Christmas Eve since 1906. Chicago is expecting temperatures to rebound above zero, but will still experience its coldest Christmas Eve since 1983.

    Much of Florida will experience the peak of their cold on Christmas Day. It will be coldest Christmas Day since 1983 for Miami, Tampa, Orlando and West Palm Beach.

    On Friday, the storm unleashed more heavy snow and blizzard conditions, particularly in the Midwest.

    As it treks east across the country, the storm is expected to become a “bomb cyclone,” a rapidly strengthening storm which drops 24 millibars of pressure within 24 hours. The storm’s pressure was forecast to match that of a Category 2 hurricane as it moved into the Great Lakes on Friday morning.

    Governors in at least 13 states, including Georgia and North Carolina in the South, have implemented emergency measures to respond to the storm. Declarations of a state of emergency in several states have included the activation of National Guard units.

    More than 5,400 Friday flights have already been canceled as of 7:30 p.m. ET, after nearly 2,700 cancellations on Thursday, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

    • It will remain very cold: Friday will bring record-low temperatures in large swaths of the US, including from the Lower Mississippi Valley, northeastward into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and stretching across large sections of the east from the Southeast, through the Southern to Central Appalachians and into the mid-Atlantic, according to the National Weather Service.

    • Dangerous wind chills: The plummeting temperatures will be accompanied by high winds, which will create dangerous wind chills across nearly all the central to eastern US.

    • Blizzard warnings: The Upper Midwest will see frigid temperatures, heavy snow and high winds. The warning applies to parts of Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Michigan. Buffalo, New York, will go under a blizzard warning Friday morning. Such warnings go in effect when snow and wind of 35 mph will reduce visibility to less than a quarter of a mile for at least three hours.

    • Whiteout conditions: Blizzard conditions may exist even if snowfall stops, because high winds can pick up snow already on the ground and cause low visibility.

    A separate storm system is bringing heavy mixed precipitation to the Pacific Northwest on Friday.

    A winter storm warning is in effect for western Washington, including Seattle, until 7 p.m. PST Friday. Additional snowfall of up to 2 inches is possible and ice accumulations could reach a quarter of an inch. Precipitation will begin as snow and transition to sleet/freezing rain and then finally to rain. More power outages are likely and travel will be made very difficult.

    The ice caused the closure of runways at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where nearly half of flights going into and out of the airport were canceled, according to FlightAware. Further, all express services for Sound Transit, a regional transportation network in the Seattle metro area, were suspended Friday due to the icy conditions.

    A winter storm warning is also in effect for northeastern Oregon, including Portland, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. PST. Total snow and sleet accumulations of up to one inch and ice accumulations of .2 to .4 inches is likely as well as winds gusting to 55 mph. Wind chills as low as zero are possible, and frostbite is possible on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes.

    One of the biggest dangers of the massive winter storm besides heavy snow and blizzard conditions is the rapid drop in temperatures over a short period of time. The air will continue to get and feel colder, especially during night hours.

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  • A ‘particularly dangerous situation’ tornado watch has been issued for 3 southern states | CNN

    A ‘particularly dangerous situation’ tornado watch has been issued for 3 southern states | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Affected by the storms? Use CNN’s lite site for low bandwidth.



    CNN
     — 

    Numerous tornadoes – including a few intense ones – are possible Tuesday afternoon and evening for parts of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi as severe storms rake the area, a situation that moved forecasters to issue a special tornado watch alerting residents to an unusual level of risk.

    Track the storms as they develop >>

    A “particularly dangerous situation” tornado watch, reserved for the most significant severe-storm threats and used in only 3% of watches, was issued for some areas in those states by the Storm Prediction Center.

    The watch, covering nearly 2.5 million people in far southeastern Arkansas, northern and central Louisiana and central Mississippi, was set to be in effect from shortly after noon to 7 p.m. CT.

    This comes as severe storms could hit a much wider area of the United States from Tuesday into early Wednesday, from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest, with tornadoes, damaging winds and hail, forecasters said.

    But prediction center forecasters focused especially on Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, saying “parameters appear favorable for strong and long-tracked tornadoes,” meaning ones that stay on the ground for an extended period, Tuesday afternoon and early evening in the watch area.

    “Numerous tornadoes (are) expected with a few intense tornadoes likely,” along with scattered large hail and scattered damaging wind gusts up to 70 mph, forecasters said in the special tornado watch.

    Overall, more than 41 million people from southeastern Texas eastward to Georgia and northward to central Indiana and Illinois are under at least a marginal threat of severe weather Tuesday, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

    Separate from the special tornado watch, the prediction center laid out an area where it believed the largest potential for severe weather, including tornadoes, existed – covering 1.6 million people in east-central Louisiana; a sliver of southeastern Arkansas; much of Mississippi, including Jackson; and northwestern Alabama. The threat for that area – a Level 4 of 5, or moderate – is relatively rare for this time of year, and tornadoes, though they can happen year-round, are more frequent in the spring and summer.

    “Severe thunderstorms in the fall and winter can be extremely impactful and may sometimes catch people off guard as thunderstorms tend to occur less frequently during the cooler months,” Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations at the Storm Prediction Center, told CNN Weather.

    A Level 3 of 5, or enhanced, risk zone encircles that area, covering 2.8 million people across parts of Mississippi and Louisiana as well as a small part of eastern Texas, southeastern Arkansas, southwestern Tennessee and western Alabama.

    What is a long-track tornado?

  • Long-track tornadoes are tornadoes that are on the ground for an extended period of time. The majority of tornadoes are on the ground for just minutes, but with some severe events, there could be tornadoes on the ground for hours. This kind of tornado is known for causing widespread damage.

Some tornadoes could happen overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, making them even more threatening because it’s harder during those hours to alert people to take shelter.

“Another challenge with nighttime tornadoes, especially in the fall and winter, is that storms typically move very quickly, at times 50 or 60 mph,” Bunting said.

“This means that you must make decisions quickly and take shelter based on information contained in the severe thunderstorm or tornado warning, and not wait until the storm arrives,” Bunting added.

The same storm system also brought heavy snowfall to 13 states across the West and Upper Midwest, where millions of people were under winter weather advisories and winter storm warnings Tuesday morning.

Generally about 2 to 4 inches of rain could fall in the south-central United States, and the total could be greater in far southern parts of Mississippi and Alabama, where the storms could stall, the Weather Prediction Center said.

That could cause flooding in those areas, where the soil is damp from recent rains, the prediction center said. Flood watches are in place Tuesday in parts of southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi and Alabama.

In anticipation of the storms, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency urged residents to document property that could get damaged.

“We encourage Mississippians to take photos of their home BEFORE the storms. These photos can be used for insurance purposes and/or possible assistance if your home is damaged in the storm,” the agency said on its Twitter account.

This is the first time since the Storm Prediction Center started using its five-tier risk system in 2014 that a Level 4 risk of severe storms has been announced twice in November, CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said.

The other Level 4 came on the fourth day of this month, when 62 tornado reports were made across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, according to the prediction center. Many homes and businesses were damaged.

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  • Several US regions face weekend weather systems that may complicate post-Thanksgiving travel | CNN

    Several US regions face weekend weather systems that may complicate post-Thanksgiving travel | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    As well-fed holiday travelers pack their bags, hit the roads and squeeze into planes this weekend, widespread rain and snow could cause delays in the trip home.

    Several weather systems are forecast to trouble regions of US on Saturday and Sunday, including two in the Northeast and another pair dumping snow on parts of the Pacific Northwest.

    Multiple storms are also expected to move across the Southeast this weekend, with many areas receiving up to 1 inch of rain through Sunday night, while Texas faces dueling snow and rain conditions.

    After rain on Friday, two separate systems will dampen weekend travel plans in the Northeast and Midwest over the weekend.

    Saturday will bring a sunny reprieve, the National Weather Service forecasts, before a cold front brings in more wet and breezy conditions on Sunday.

    “Precipitation will fall as rain for most, but mixed wintry precipitation will be possible in northern New England and parts of the Great Lakes region,” the National Weather Service said.

    Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 3 inches are forecast across much of the eastern US over the weekend. Dry conditions are expected to return to the region as the system moves off the east coast on Monday, according to the NWS.

    Derek Van Dam/CNN

    Those traveling through Texas could face a difficult journey this weekend as the state endures heavy snowfall in its western counties and potentially flooding rains in the east.

    Winter storm warnings, winter weather advisories and a blizzard warning are in place across western Texas and southeastern New Mexico through Saturday morning when snowfall is expected to begin letting up.

    Widespread snowfall totals of 4 inches are expected across the winter storm warning area. Those under a blizzard warning in western Texas are forecast to receive total snow accumulations of 5 to 10 inches and gusty winds up to 60 mph.

    In western areas of the state and along its Gulf Coast, heavy rainfall overnight into Saturday morning could overwhelm soil already saturated by rains on Friday, bringing the threat of scattered flash flooding to some areas.

    Areas near the Gulf Coast are expected to see 2 to 3 inches of rainfall into Saturday morning, though some localities could see higher amounts, the prediction center said. Parts along the Gulf are under a moderate risk for excessive rainfall and could see more significant flash flooding.

    Farther east, storm conditions may make driving hazardous in some areas, including around Mobile, Alabama, where severe storms could occur Saturday, and in central North Carolina, where occasional wind gusts could reach 40 mph Sunday afternoon and evening, according to the National Weather Service.

    02 weather 112622

    Derek Van Dam/CNN

    A combination of snow and wind could lead to hazardous travel conditions in parts of the Northwest this weekend as the region is hit by two frontal systems.

    The system that brought rain and higher elevation snow through the Pacific Northwest on Friday will move into the Intermountain West on Saturday. Even heavier rain and mountain snow will follow as the second system moves into the Cascades and northern Rockies from Sunday into Monday.

    Some areas could see between 1 to 2 feet of snow and gusty winds of up to 40 mph through the weekend, with Sunday seeing the heaviest snowfall.

    Drivers should watch out for snow-covered roads in the Cascades on Sunday and Monday, the NWS office in Portland said.

    Winter storm watches and winter weather advisories have been issued for areas that are expected to be hard-hit.

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