A long-lasting ice storm will affect much of the South through Wednesday, with the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area at the center of the threat.
The slow-moving storm system is expected to bring freezing rain and accumulating ice to parts of the country stretching from Texas to West Virginia.
About 50 million people were under winter warnings Monday, including Dallas and Austin, Texas; Oklahoma city; Little Rock, Arkansas; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; and St. Louis.
Light, freezing rain is expected over parts of the central and southern plains on Monday, and a wintry mix is ​​expected in parts of the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio river valleys. It will be enough to glaze roads, leading to treacherous travel.
A heavier round of freezing rain is expected to develop over central Texas on Tuesday and up through Arkansas into Tennessee.
Wednesday will bring a third round of wintry precipitation across much of the area and could be the worst and most impactful as rain will be the heaviest and temperatures the coldest.
Ice accumulations can be as large as 0.25 inches, which can lead to near-impossible travel conditions and a high probability of power outages.
Freezing ice is the most dangerous form of winter precipitation, as it resembles rain when it falls, but immediately turns to ice when it hits a surface below freezing.
Coldest since Christmas
Arctic cold moving down from Canada causes the frigid conditions. As many as 16 million people were warned Monday about wind chill from the Canadian border to the Texas Panhandle, with temperatures reaching minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit in Montana and Wyoming and minus 40 degrees in the Dakotas.
It was minus 59 degrees in Peter Sinks, Utah, the coldest temperature recorded in the state in 21 years. The last time the state came close to this was minus 62 degrees on January 20, 2002.
The arctic air mass that causes temperatures to drop to 40 degrees below average will spread south and east over the course of the week, eventually moving northeast Saturday, when morning temperatures are expected to reach single digits and chills in the minus 10 to minus 20 degrees range.
As parts of the South grapple with the winter storm, several cities in the Northeast will continue to wait for snow. New York City set a record for the latest first measurable snow on Monday, the previous record being January 29, 1973.
With no measurable snow in the near-term forecast, the city could break the record for the longest “snowless streak,” at 332 days in 2020. As of Monday, it stood at 327 days.
Some other notable snowless statistics
- Philadelphia is rapidly approaching the last first recorded snow, which is February 3.
- Washington, DC, averages 13.8 inches of snow per year and should have received half that amount by now. The last four recorded first snowfalls all fell in February.
- Syracuse, New York, one of the snowiest cities in the country, averages more than four feet of snow per year but has received just 10 inches this winter, putting it 3 feet behind the season’s average so far.
- Erie, New York, has had just 39.5 inches of snow this season, more than 2 feet below where it should be. It should have been 65 inches by now.
Why no snow for the East?
Several factors can be attributed to the lack of snow in the east, the first being a lack of cold air and an unfavorable storm track typical of La Niña winters.
The second has to do with the warming climate. Winter is the fastest warming season, leading to a trend of less snow overall. The East is also seeing more “yo-yo” winters with lots of snow versus no snow at all due to extremes related to the warming atmosphere.
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