Severe weather threatens Midwest with snow, South with tornadoes and West with more flooding
Storms are once again about to blast much of the U.S. meteorologists say.
A “large, potent storm” is moving into the country’s center, according to AccuWeather, with “potentially damaging storms” and a “variety of severe weather hazards” expected.
In the New York City area, any storms or remnants will come in the form of rain, thanks to a mild system stuck over the region, National Weather Service meteorologist Dominic Ramunni told the Daily News.
“It’s going to be a wet start to the new year,” he said.
A system out west has inundated California’s Central Valley region with precipitation from a so-called atmospheric river that dumped as many as 5 inches of rain in the Sacramento Valley and up to a foot of snow in the mountains on Saturday, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Kurth said.
At least one person was killed and floodwaters prompted some evacuations, including more than 1,000 inmates temporarily relocated from the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center to nearby jails.
More precipitation was expected this week, with another powerful system predicted for Wednesday and Thursday carrying 3.5 inches of rain in the valley and as many as 3 feet of snow in the mountains, plus 50 mph wind gusts. Yet another one will follow, with another 2 inches of rain in the valley and 2 more feet of snow in the mountains.
On Monday, the central and southern Rockies and the Four Corners region were starting to see accumulating snow. The worst of the snow should be more or less relegated to a “narrow corridor” of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest, AccuWeather said. But travel will be dicey in numerous surrounding areas because of snow, freezing rain and ice.
The storm was expected to head east into the Plains and intensify, fomenting severe thunderstorms Monday and Tuesday, AccuWeather predicted.
“It’s a pretty intense system,” Weather Prediction Center lead forecaster Brian Hurley told The News. The north and west side of the far-reaching storm is bringing heavy snow and freezing rain to Nebraska, South Dakota, northwest Iowa into southern and central Minnesota and into Wisconsin, he said.
North of Omaha and Des Moines could see ice accretion of a half inch or an inch, Hurley said, noting that “travel is going to be a mess in that area.”
It’s the same system that will wreak havoc in the South over the coming days, and “that’s where we have a lot of severe weather watches, tornado watches, as well as flash flood watches,” he said.
“There is an enhanced risk of severe thunderstorms across parts of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and southern/central Alabama,” the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said Monday.
More than 6 million people were on tornado watch until 9 p.m. Central Time, Hurley said.
With News Wire Services
