Bloomberg News
Snow fell by the foot across the Upper Great Lakes and Northern Plains as winter storms threatened to coat highways, power lines and trees with ice as far south as Texas.
As much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow was forecast in Minneapolis, according to the U.S. National Weather Service, with 40 inches possible on the coastline of Lake Superior northeast of Duluth as the storm moves into Canada. In Texas and Oklahoma, a half-inch of ice may affect electricity and transportation.
'Significant travel impacts are possible during this event,' the weather service said in a winter storm warning for Dallas and Fort Worth. 'Ice accumulations may make road surfaces impassable at times through Friday afternoon.'
The storms are being fueled by a blast of arctic air that has gripped much of western Canada and is spreading through the U.S., causing temperatures to plummet. Three separate low-pressure systems will be fed from this frigid air, striking the upper Great Plains, the central U.S. and the Northeast.
'It is just brutal cold air,' said Dave Samuel, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. 'It is just nasty. It is about as cold as you can get at this time of year.'
One storm will move into Canada today, bringing freezing rain and snow to Manitoba and Quebec, Samuel said. Snowfall and freezing-rain warnings are in place for those provinces, including the cities of Winnipeg and Ottawa, according to Environment Canada. The storm should miss Toronto and Montreal to the north, Samuel said.
Second Storm
The second system threatens to coat an area from North Texas through southern Illinois with snow and ice starting today, Samuel said.
Winter storm warnings and watches are in place from New Mexico to Ohio. An ice-storm warning has been issued for parts of eastern Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The warning in Dallas takes effect at 6 p.m. local time and runs for 24 hours.
'It looks like there will be enough freezing rain to bring down trees and power lines,' Samuel said.
From Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, the storm will be mainly ice and freezing rain, he said. There may be snow north of that line. It may be hard for repair crews to restore lost power because of the weather, he said.
Natural gas futures snapped a two-day loss, climbing as much as 0.7 percent to $3.987 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The temperature in Harrison, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains, reached 65 degrees (18 Celsius) yesterday. It is expected to drop to 6 late tomorrow.
'Single digits and without power, that will be brutal,' Samuel said.
A third system will develop over the Ohio Valley this weekend, Samuel said. It may bring a mix of rain, sleet and snow to Washington, D.C., and Virginia, then move west of New York and Boston, bringing more rain than snow to those cities.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, December 5, 2013 - Rating: 4.5
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