Winter Storm Fern swept across much of the nation Saturday but weather watchers say we haven’t seen the worst of the storm yet. That’s because roads had become icy Saturday, causing an increase in traffic accidents, but the ice hadn’t reached the point where it was causing trees and power lines to snap.
That’s much more likely to happen in the early hours Sunday, and continuing to spread through the day. We’ll see the damage from these widespread outages as the weekend winds down, particularly in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Piedmont region of North Carolina.
We’ll also see the heaviest snowfall on Sunday. A band along the Ohio River, from Louisville through the Cincinnati area, is expected to pick up about a foot of snow. Heavier totals will fall from Pennsylvania into New York and points farther east. The Mid Atlantic and New England states could see 12 to 18 inches of snow.
So far, air traffic has been more impacted than ground travel. Some 16,000 flights have been canceled over the next three days. Here’s more from meteorologist Max Velocity.
Even more of the United States is now coming under extreme winter weather warnings. The warnings stretch more than 2000 miles, from Santa Fe in the Rockies all the way east and north to Boston along the Atlantic coastal shores.
Heaviest snowfall totals are projected for the Mid Atlantic states as well as the Midwest states lining the Ohio River — Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois onto Missouri. Heavy snow will fall between I-40 and I-70, with the Midwest states likely receiving at least a foot of snow. Snowfall totals will increase as the storm — dubbed Winter Storm Fern — approaches the Atlantic Ocean, entering Pennsylvania, New York and New England. The snow could pile up as much as two feet in some locales.
The South won’t get whacked by snow, but faces potentially deadly ice storms that could bring down grown trees and powerlines, while sending citizens shivering in homes reeling without energy. The ice will stretch eastward from Texas and Oklahoma, encompassing much of Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia, including the city of Atlanta. Snow already began falling Friday night in the Texas Panhandle, with expectations for ice to slam into Dallas and Tulsa.
Brutal cold weather will aggravate conditions as winds from Canada push chilling temperatures southward. The storm will linger through Sunday, although cold weather will remain entrenched over much of this vast region on Monday and Tuesday. So travel isn’t advised. Best to hunker down at home, and be sure to have supplies of food, water, batteries and life-saving gear.
Here’s a short, but comprehensive report from CBS News. Best to check your local stations for up-to-the-minute news and forecasts for your vicinity.
When It Snows in Texas. Here’s an iconic look at a Panhandle panic from the cartoon King of the Hill. The town of Arlen doesn’t exist, but it’s based on King of the Hill creator Mike Judge’s memories of growing up in Texas, and specifically, the suburbs around Dallas and Ft. Worth.
Climate researcher Dane Wigington tells Inspired’s Jean Nolan there is absolutely nothing natural about the extreme weather that has descended upon the planet this year.
From California’s snowmageddon to Canada’s extreme infernos, Wigington says this isn’t anything that we can consider natural or cyclical. “Someone changed the schedule, someone changed the script,” he says. Wigington blames the harsh conditions on climate engineering, specifically chemically-nucleated snow in California, where the state received historic snowfall this past winter.
“We’re not guessing. We can hear the aircraft outside and we’re testing the precipitation,” Wigington says. He added that the same scenario exists with the massive and extreme wildfires, where the goal is to mask the build-up of the thermal energy on the planet. Here’s more from Inspired.
