As the winter storm moves across the U.S., ice is becoming a major concern Weather News

More than 200,000 homes and businesses lost power across the United States on Thursday as power companies struggled to keep up with the rain and snow freeze after weighing down tree branches and encrusting power lines. winter storm It spread northeast from Texas.

Power outages attributed to ice or fallen power lines were concentrated in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, but the storm’s path extended further south and south-east of the U.S.

Heavy snow was expected from the southern Rockies to the north of New England, while advertisers said there would be heavy ice accumulation from Texas to Pennsylvania.

“We have a lot of real estate covered by the winter weather this morning,” Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist at the National Park Service in College Park, Maryland, said Thursday morning. “We have a wide area of ​​heavy snow, snow and frozen rain.”

It was expected to see parts of Ohio, New York, and northern New England heavy snowfall as the storm moves east, there may be 30 to 45 centimeters (12 to 18 inches) of snow in some places until Friday, Orrison said.

On the warmer side of the storm, there could be thunderstorms that could damage wind gusts and tornadoes on Thursday in some parts of Mississippi and Alabama, the Storm Forecast Center said.

The snowstorm in the Midwest is not uncommon except in some places, so it was so severe that it had a greater path of heavy snow than usual, said Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University. With the warmer climate, people are forgetting what the winter in the Midwest was like a long time ago, he said.

“The only amazing winters I’ve ever experienced through photos of my parents in the 1970s,” said Gensini, 35. “It simply came to our notice then [storm] it is the equivalent of the course, not only of the past, but also of the present of winter. ‘

More than 51 centimeters (20 inches) of snow fell in the southern Rocky Mountains, and more than a foot of snow fell in the Illinois, Indiana and Michigan areas.

Heavy rain and freezing rain occurred early Thursday in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas. More than 200,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, mostly in Texas, Tennessee and Arkansas, according to the poweroutage.us website, which reports on service reports.

“Unfortunately, we’re looking at enough ice accumulation to look at the significant effects of travel,” Orrison said.

DALLAS – I-35 @ Colorado Blvd. You can see the winter mix around 7:30 and near the center. The team is applying and plowing the materials while the storm continues. Not too good traffic in this view! Avoid traveling if this is possible #winter storm. #txwx pic.twitter.com/oBDI2jTJ8U

– TxDOT Dallas (@TxDOTDallas) February 3, 2022

Tennessee had the largest number of power outages by noon, especially in and around Memphis and West Tennessee.

As a result of the weight of the ice in Memphis, the bushes fell, and as a result tree branches and twigs fell. The parked cars had a layer of ice on them and authorities in several communities in the city warned that some cars were slipping on the dirt roads.

In Texas, the return of freezing weather it led to greater anxiety In February 2021, nearly a year after a state-of-the-art power outage that wiped out the state’s power grid, it caused hundreds of deaths in one of the worst blackouts in U.S. history.

A in front New test for the Texas networkRepublican Gov. Greg Abbott said he was holding on to enough power to overcome the storm. Texas had about 70,000 interruptions by Thursday morning, but Abbott and local officials said it was due to high winds or ice and falling transmission lines, not network faults.

South Bend (Indiana) reported a snowfall record of 28.5 centimeters (11.2 inches) on Wednesday, beating the previous record of 20.3 centimeters (8 inches) set in 1908, said National Weather Meteorologist Hannah Carpenter. . Service Office in Syracuse, Indiana.

He said the temperature will drop dramatically as the storm progresses. “It’s definitely not going to melt very quickly here,” Carpenter said Thursday morning.

Snow fell on a ground crew working at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Texas on Thursday [LM Otero/AP Photo]

After freezing temperatures settled in the frozen areas, the population of Kansas was awakened by dangerous cold winds around -26 degrees Celsius (-15 Fahrenheit).

In New Mexico, schools and non-essential government services were closed in some areas on Thursday due to frozen roads.

The disruptive storm began on Tuesday and moved across the central U.S. on Marmot Day on Wednesday, with the famous marmot Punxsutawney Phil announcing six more winter weeks on the same day.

The storm came after a Nor’easter last weekend, bringing food conditions to many parts of the East Coast.

Nearly 7,000 flights were scheduled to be scheduled in the U.S. on Wednesday or Thursday, according to FlightAware.com flight tracking services. More than a thousand flights were canceled on Thursday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport alone, and more than 300 were canceled at nearby Dallas Love Field.