Snow present in 49 of the 50 U.S. states
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
, Posted by Tyree at 1:28 PM
After big snow and ice events in the Southeast, Plains, and Midwest
this week, 49 out of the 50 states currently have snow on the ground –
yes, even Hawaii, where snow falls in Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea all
winter.
The only state that has avoided this icy blast is Florida. Does that
make you want to go on a nice, warm vacation to the Sunshine State?
You're not alone.
Put another way, that means snow is present in 69.4 percent of the
lower 48, which is more than double than December. This is extremely
unusual, though it's hard to put a date on when this last happened
because records aren't kept on this kind of event.
The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center combines
ground reports and images from satellites in space to determine how
much of the country is covered in snow. That's what you see in the
image above. The images tell how deep and widespread the snow is, and
that's important not only for images like this one, but also for
computer weather models, which use the data to generate accurate
forecasts. Such forecasts were very useful in predicting this week's
winter storms.
Earlier this week, two storms began to churn: one in the northern
Plains and Midwest, and one in Texas. The southern winter storm took a
track across the Gulf Coast, pulling warm, moist air over an extreme
arctic blast that set up over the eastern half of the United States
late last week. This provided fuel for the storm to carve a path of
snow, sleet, and freezing rain from Texas to the Carolinas.
Here in Atlanta, we're still coated in snow and ice and probably will
be for the next couple of days. No one in the Southeast escaped the
wrath except, of course, Florida.
But it's not over. Now that the southern-track storm has moved into the
Atlantic and is moving north, the other Midwest storm is going to merge
with it, creating a Nor'easter event that could dump up to two feet of
snow in the Northeast. Winter storm warnings and advisories have been
posted for the event - 32 states have winter storm advisories issued,
by the way.
Here's how the snow forecast breaks down for some major cities:
Washington DC: 2-4 inches
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 4-6 inches
New York, N.Y.: 6-12 inches
Hartford, Connecticut: 15-20 inches
Boston, Massachusetts: 12-16 inches
The snow and cold started early this winter and has been extreme for
most of the country. Usually the Southeast avoids the blast, but not in
2011. We're all feeling a little "snowed in" this winter.
this week, 49 out of the 50 states currently have snow on the ground –
yes, even Hawaii, where snow falls in Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea all
winter.
The only state that has avoided this icy blast is Florida. Does that
make you want to go on a nice, warm vacation to the Sunshine State?
You're not alone.
Put another way, that means snow is present in 69.4 percent of the
lower 48, which is more than double than December. This is extremely
unusual, though it's hard to put a date on when this last happened
because records aren't kept on this kind of event.
The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center combines
ground reports and images from satellites in space to determine how
much of the country is covered in snow. That's what you see in the
image above. The images tell how deep and widespread the snow is, and
that's important not only for images like this one, but also for
computer weather models, which use the data to generate accurate
forecasts. Such forecasts were very useful in predicting this week's
winter storms.
Earlier this week, two storms began to churn: one in the northern
Plains and Midwest, and one in Texas. The southern winter storm took a
track across the Gulf Coast, pulling warm, moist air over an extreme
arctic blast that set up over the eastern half of the United States
late last week. This provided fuel for the storm to carve a path of
snow, sleet, and freezing rain from Texas to the Carolinas.
Here in Atlanta, we're still coated in snow and ice and probably will
be for the next couple of days. No one in the Southeast escaped the
wrath except, of course, Florida.
But it's not over. Now that the southern-track storm has moved into the
Atlantic and is moving north, the other Midwest storm is going to merge
with it, creating a Nor'easter event that could dump up to two feet of
snow in the Northeast. Winter storm warnings and advisories have been
posted for the event - 32 states have winter storm advisories issued,
by the way.
Here's how the snow forecast breaks down for some major cities:
Washington DC: 2-4 inches
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 4-6 inches
New York, N.Y.: 6-12 inches
Hartford, Connecticut: 15-20 inches
Boston, Massachusetts: 12-16 inches
The snow and cold started early this winter and has been extreme for
most of the country. Usually the Southeast avoids the blast, but not in
2011. We're all feeling a little "snowed in" this winter.
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