High-Cost Winter Weather in the Northern Valley of the State of California: Precipitating Snowfall and Power Outages During the Mid-Winter Storm

Over the past week, the prolonged winter storm has enveloped a large swath of the US with dangerously low temperatures and wind chills, also bringing with it widespread power outages and thousands of canceled flights.

The storm blanketed some mountain areas of drought-parched California with thick snow, including Soda Springs in the northern part of the state, which received 60 inches of snow in 48 hours.

There is a threat of a severe storm for the southern part of the US. There is a threat of severe weather for parts of western and central Kansas and Oklahoma.

The threat is likely to get stronger as the system heads east Tuesday, impacting a large swath of the Lower Mississippi River Valley. Some places in Louisiana and Mississippi, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, could see tornadoes and high wind gusts.

States from the Rockies to the Upper Midwest – including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin – saw more than a foot of snow this week.

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 storm already made for icy and dangerous conditions on key highways, with authorities closing a long stretch of freeway in Northern California because of blowing snow and near-zero visibility.

“The snowpack is about 225% of normal, so it’s more than twice what we’d be expecting this time in December,” said Mark Deutschendorf, forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Reno.

“It looks a lot like Christmas out here,” Deutschendorf said. It stuck to everything, even when it came with a lot of wind. It’s like a picture postcard.”

He praised the snow totals so far but said he was cautiously optimistic that the precipitation would stop the state from going through a serious dry spell.

The Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort in Olympic Valley, California, received 36 inches of snow and 48 hours of wind over the last 72 hours after the November 14th blizzard

“We’re Buried,” the Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort wrote on its website Sunday, sharing photos of thick snow covering the ski resort in Olympic Valley, California.

“This is definitely a storm to remember. We’ve now received 7.5 feet of snow since December 1st. Plus, in just 24 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday morning, we received more than 35 inches of snow — the 6th largest snowfall total in 24 hours that we have on record,” resort operators wrote.

Due to the monstrous storm that walloped the US this week, nor’Easter conditions will be in place across New York and New England over the weekend.

“This is a life-threatening dangerous event,” Hochul said Friday afternoon at a news conference in Albany. “Protect yourselves, protect your families. Don’t travel until the roads are open.

“We urge everyone in the impacted regions to avoid unnecessary travel tonight and tomorrow,” Hochul said in a Thursday statement. “Work from home if possible, stay off the roads, and make sure you and your loved ones remain vigilant.”

In Pennsylvania drivers were urged to avoid travel due to low visibility caused by wind and heavy snow.

Many cities and towns are still covered in thick snow despite the fact that the powerful system that brought the snow moved away from the Northeast. Over a 24-hour span, Baraga, Michigan, received 42.8 inches of snow while Watertown, New York, got 34.2 inches.

The storm left 100,000 homes and businesses in the dark in Minnesota,Wisconsin, West Virginia and Virginia as well as Pennsylvania early Friday, afterwreaking havoc in the South and Upper Midwest.

And in parts of the Mid-Atlantic, the storm brought a quarter inch of ice was reported Thursday morning to the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and Maryland, and about a tenth of an inch had built up in parts of Virginia.

Powerful winds whirled by blizzard conditions knocked down power lines in the Upper Midwest as temperatures in some areas plummeted to near or below freezing, leaving thousands without proper heating.

Farmerville, Louisiana, a tornado killed two people and shut down the power grid in the wake of a 2021 winter storm: Why we are going through so much snow

A mother and son were killed on Tuesday in Louisiana when a tornado devastated their home, according to local officials.

The National Weather Service said the tornado that traveled through Farmerville had an estimated wind speed of 140 mph. There were at least 20 injured and the tornado destroyed part of an apartment complex and a mobile home park.

President Biden spoke to reporters in front of a national map of wind chill forecasts. This is not like a snowy day when you were a kid. This is very serious.

The temperature fell at record pace in the Rockies because of the cold front. In nine minutes the temperature dropped more than 30 degrees.

Governors declared states of emergency in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming. Governors in Indiana, Colorado and Missouri activated the National Guard.

In Texas, where a 2021 winter storm overwhelmed the state’s power grid and ultimately killed more than 200 people, officials said they expected the grid would hold up as forecasts called for cold weather but little precipitation.

Peter Lake, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, spoke at a news conference about the reliability of the grid. “We expect to have enough generation to meet the demand during the winter weather event.”

“There’s going to be enough snow combining with the wind to create treacherous driving conditions at a minimum,” said Mike Bardou, a forecaster at the NWS office in Chicago. Blowing and drifting is going to be possible to a level where people could get stranded in bitterly cold temperatures.

Hundreds of flights have been canceled already and more are likely after a bomb cyclone develops near the Great Lakes, which can cause gale-force winds and snow. As of about 2 p.m., FlightAware reported that almost 1,700 flights had been canceled on Sunday.

No airport canceled more than Denver International Airport, where the recorded temperature of minus 24 degrees was the coldest recorded since 1990. There were more than 500 flights canceled at the airport, with over 25% of them in or out of the airport. More than 450 of them were delayed.

In Chicago, up to 8 inches of snow was expected to fall over the course of the day on Thursday and Friday, and temperatures were expected to fall below zero overnight.

The City of Kansas City tries to find a permanent place to live, but there’s not much you can do during a winter storm

The city officials said that the crews were working around the clock to make sure flights move at the O’Hare and Midway airports.

The city’s deputy aviation commissioner said that the hard-working individuals would have more than 350 pieces of snow removal equipment, 400,000 gallons of liquid deicer for runways and taxiways and 5,000 tons of salt.

The winter weather in Kansas City only brought an inch or two of snow. The city’s homeless services were expected to experience a strain due to the predicted low temperatures.

Several area shelters added beds this week, but still many reported being at or near capacity. Some people took refuge on the city’s streetcar, which was operating after crews had cleared the route and platforms.

“The library is closed. So it’s only this or the bus, or you go into a parking garage, but you’ll probably get kicked out,” said Pete, who said he did not have a permanent place to live and declined to give his last name to KCUR. There is not much you can do.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1144970060/winter-storm-holiday-travel

The Long Beach branch shut down in the blizzard-ravaged state of Montana and its connection to the Long Island Rail Road in New York

The sun was out in Montana as snow moved towards the Midwest. But the frigid temperatures won’t thaw until the weekend, forecasts say.

“Even though this is kind of a worse winter than we’ve seen in the last few years, it’s nothing new to Montana. We’ve been running cattle for a long time, so we kind of know how to get through stuff like this,” Willemsma said.

Hank Willemsma, a rancher near Dillon, where Thursday’s high temperature was expected to reach minus 13 degrees, said he’d be working through the cold to keep hay out for his cattle.

This report was done with the help of Bruce Konviser, WPLN’s PAPearl Pfleger andBlake Farmer, and NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly and David Schaper.

Planes, trains and automobiles were all being disrupted: There were hundreds of miles of road closings and flight cancelations were growing rapidly. In New York, flooding along the Long Island Rail Road forced part of the Long Beach branch to temporarily shut down.

“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.”

Collision of a Dodger with a SemiTractor-Trailer and a Pickup in Kansas City, Ohio: Nine people have died and four are injured

• Ohio: Nine people have died as a result of weather-related auto crashes, 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.

The Kansas City Police Department reported that one person died after they lost control of their car on the streets of Kansas City. “The Dodge went down the embankment, over the cement retaining wall and landed upside down, submerged in Brush Creek,” police said in a statement.

Life threatening cold has pushed all the way to the Gulf Coast and the Mexican border, and sub zero wind chill reports can be seen south of Austin and Atlanta. Many parts of the eastern US will be in the teens for Christmas Eve, which is the lowest temperature in decades.

More than two-thirds of US homes and businesses were without electricity as of 1a.m. Since the start of the storm the number of outages has at times exceeded a million customers.

“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.

Hochul called it a kitchen sink storm because it was throwing everything at him. “We’ve had ice, flooding, snow, freezing temperatures, and everything that mother nature could wallop at us this weekend.”

The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded Saturday. Officials said the airport would be shut through Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 43 inches (109 centimeters) at 7 a.m. Sunday.

The Bounds on Temperature, Winds, Wind Chills, and Frozen Skin Infall from a Superstorm Moving Out of the Great Lakes

He said that his mother and sister and their family are all 30 minutes away. We are always together on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, but we are all hunkering down until Monday.

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.

Friday will bring record-low temperatures from the Mississippi Valley to the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, as well as across a large portion of the east from the Southeast to the Central Appalachians.

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

Even if snow stops, high winds can pick up snow already on the ground and cause low visibility.

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. Sound Transit express services were suspended on Friday due to the icy conditions.

There is a winter storm warning for northeastern Oregon from 4 to 10 pm. 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.

The weekend temperatures will be 25 to 35 degrees below average, according to the National Weather Service.

Winter Storm Travel: Precipitation During a High Wind Wind and Heavy Rains on a North Carolina Turnpike. III. Nashville, Ten minutes before the First Day of Winter Break

At least 6 people were killed in crashes, with at least four dead from a pileup of 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike.

Parts of the South are not normally seen during a quarter century. In Nashville, temperatures fell below zero on Friday for the first time since 1996.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has asked local utilities to cut their electricity use due to the high pressure on the power grid caused by the cold. In Nashville, there will be 10-minute power outs every few hours until the load is brought under control.

Getting the power back on in a storm is a significant challenge for the VP of security and preparedness at the Edison.

“Sometimes accessing these areas can be really challenging with downed power lines, with downed trees, with very icy roads. … Crews cannot go up in bucket trucks if the wind is higher than 35 miles an hour,” Aaronson said. It will limit the ability of crews to get out there and get the electricity back on.

Floodwater rose to 9 feet along the coast of New Jersey due to heavy rains and high winds. The interior locations along the Hudson River were flooded.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/24/1145419116/winter-storm-travel-power-outage-dangerous-conditions

Multiple deaths in Buffalo, New York, during the longest sustained blizzard ever recorded in the city – an emergency official warned of possible future dangers

“Obviously that affects anyone who has a connecting flight, and we’re going to see a lot of people missing connecting flights with these long delay times, so that’s sad,” she said.

Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get to anywhere that had heat amid what Hochul called the longest sustained blizzard conditions ever in the city. With streets under a thick blanket of white, that didn’t work for people like Jeremy Manahan who couldn’t charge his phone in his car after 29 hours without electricity.

Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, and another died in Buffalo. Four more deaths were confirmed overnight, bringing the total to seven in Erie County. County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned there may be more dead.

Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive said on Saturday that this may be the worst storm in the community’s history.

Emergency workers were still rescuing people from cars as darkness fell on Saturday — some of them trapped since Friday. Some people were waiting for the power to be out so they could stay put, but there was no safe way to get to shelter because of the snow.

Thousands of people in Erie County were without power on Sunday, and many wouldn’t have lights or heating until Tuesday at the earliest.

The Naked State Highway Patrol: The Emergency Response of the Buffalo-Niagara Airport After the Hurricane Irregular on Saturday

Drivers ignoring travel bans and becoming stuck were some of the problems that had to be solved.

The National Guard was asked to help with rescue operations by the county officials. The governor of New York said that the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport is closed until Monday.

“Everyone is like, ‘Oh, you’re from Buffalo, you’re used to this,’” said Tommy Bellonte, 37, who briefly emerged from his Buffalo home Saturday morning to check on a neighbor. You cannot get used to it.

Some residents of areas that are beachfront in New York City may have to leave their homes for the Christmas season because of Friday’s storm surge.

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.

The cold made people stay in their homes, so towns and cities opened warming shelters in fire stations and school gymnasiums for people who wanted to stay.

After a day without power, Shantel Moncrief and her husband attempted to sleep in their apartment in south Nashville on Friday night layered in sweaters and blankets. They were too cold to rest and moved into her mother’s house at 6 a.m.

Con Edison ASKs Snowstorm Customers to Conserve Energy: Frank Anderson’s New York City Truck Came to his Home in Tonawanda

Travelers were due to spend Christmas Eve in nearby hotels after 50 flights were canceled at La Guardia Airport.

Misty and Dan Ellis arrived at the airport for check-in at 3 a.m. with their teenage children. Hours later, their flight was canceled, and each member of the family was rebooked on a different flight, said Mr. Ellis.

The family decided to rent a car instead and drive 14 hours to their home in Nashville. The cost would be hefty, Mr. Ellis said, but he did not mind paying it.

On Saturday there was darkness in New York and again on Sunday there was cold and the work to restore power and clear roads was continuing. With snow forecast to continue, and travel bans still in effect, stores were empty of last-minute shoppers, and streets mostly silent.

Frank Anderson, 50, was stuck in deep snow in his large white pickup truck on Saturday for the second time since wrapping up his shift as a prison guard.

Still wearing his work jacket with a New York State Corrections and Community Supervision emblem on his left sleeve and with only a spare sweater in the back seat, he found his truck jammed along Hertel Avenue, his tires spinning on ice, as he attempted to make it back to his wife and three children in time for Christmas. He was close to his home in the suburb of Tonawanda.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/24/us/winter-storm-snow-weather/con-edison-asks-new-york-city-customers-to-conserve-energy

A Cold Christmas Eve in New York City During the December 18th and December 24th at the JFK and LaGuardia Airports

Euan Ward , Eliza Fawcett , Isabella Grullón Paz , Bob Chiarito, Jamie McGee, Ellen Yan, April Rubin, Sharon Dunten and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed reporting.

New York City had a cold Christmas Eve and it was especially cold at the JFK and LaGuardia airports. The National Weather Service said that it was the second-coldest December in 150 years at Central Park, with a high of 15 degrees.

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.

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.

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.

The loss of water pressure for residents in Jackson, Miss., after a large water main break on Saturday, is due to frigid temperatures, and is making it difficult to repair it.

“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 is appreciated by the administration as well as every resident who is affected, the release stated.

Around 500 people were stranded on the road Friday night and into Saturday morning because of the extreme weather, Poloncarz said.

The National Guard was summoned to help rescue people who were stuck in vehicles and to give rides to medical workers so they wouldn’t be late to work.

Three deaths related to cold air in Colorado, and four deaths in the Great Lakes, California, due to a low-pressure system on Monday

In Seattle, online videos depict cars sliding on the icy roads and residents slipping as they walk on the sidewalks, according to CNN affiliate KOMO.

Hochul said to reporters Saturday that she would ask the government for a declaration of emergency so she can get reimbursements for the extraordinary expenses of the overtime. “We’ve deployed individuals – the utility crews have come but also making sure that we have all the vehicles we need.”

Two people were killed in Buffalo because they weren’t able to get to medical attention, Hochul said, noting that it was a crisis situation that unfolds before your eyes.

• 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.

While a low-pressure system moves away to Canada, another system will cause havoc in the north on Monday, with snow in the northern Plains.

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

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.

“Some were found in cars and some in snowbanks,” Poloncarz said. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days.”

It would be far for me to get to the one warming shelter. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. You can’t be outside longer than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.

A snowmobile Christmas Day getaway in Hamilton, Ontario, where a family of five people is staying for Christmas with their family and a doctor

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. They spent several hours with the engine running, buffeted by wind and almost buried in snow because they couldn’t get help.

Their fuel almost went out by 4 a.m. Saturday so they had to risk the storm to get to a shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, following his footprints through drifts.

“If I stay in this car I’m going to die here with my kids,” Ilunga recalled thinking. The family walked through the shelter doors and he cried. I will never forget it in my life.

After PJM Interconnection said that its utilities could meet the day’s demand, there was no need to worry. 65 million consumers in the mid-Atlantic were asked to conserve energy on Saturday.

In Jackson, Mississippi, city officials on Christmas Day announced that residents must now boil their drinking water due to water lines bursting in the frigid temperatures While in Tampa, Florida, the thermometer plunged below freezing for the first time in almost five years, according to the National Weather Service — a drop conducive to cold-blooded iguanas falling out of trees.

Kless was up at 3 a.m. on Sunday in Buffalo. He called his three children at their mother’s house to wish them Merry Christmas and then headed off on his snowmobile for a second day spent shuttling people from stuck cars and frigid homes to a church operating as a warming shelter.

He brought 15 people to the church in Buffalo on Saturday, including a family of five who were transported one-by-one. He also got a man in need of dialysis, who had spent 17 hours stranded in his car, back home, where he could receive treatment.

Driving bans and snowfall in Buffalo, NY, during the last 13 days of Winter Storm New York City, a voice-over from the governor

“We’re still in the throes of this very dangerous life-threatening situation,” Hochul said, urging residents to stay off the roads as a driving ban remains in place in Erie County through Monday.

“Our state and county plows have been out there, nonstop, giving up time and putting themselves in danger, driving through blinding snowstorms to clear the roads,” Hochul said.

Take for example the sight of a sheet of white for more than a day and a half in a row. He said that it was like that outside in the worst conditions. “It was continual blizzard and white outs such that no one could see where they were going. Nobody knew what was happening.

While abandoned vehicles pepper the snow-covered roadways – with hundreds of cars still along the streets of Buffalo – conditions are also difficult inside homes.

Some residents have remained in their homes for the last 56 hours, some without power in the freezing cold, Hochul said during the press conference. This is not due to a lack of resources, the governor said, but rather a mobility and access challenge faced by utility companies.

Buffalo will continue to see snowfall and frigid cold temperatures Monday, with a high of 23 degrees expected in the daytime and a low of 18 at night, according to the National Weather Service.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/26/weather/arctic-winter-storm-new-york-blizzard-monday/index.html

South Central Freeze Alerts and Forecasts through the Break-up of the RHIC EAS Energy Conversion Scale on Thursday and Sunday

More than 10 million people were under freeze alerts across the South Monday, including residents in Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham.

Much of the rest of the eastern part of the country will still be in a deep freeze through Monday before a moderating trend sets in on Tuesday, forecasters said.