Sudden Winter Storm in Central PA

UPDATE: The Centre Daily Times reports on a local accident caused by the storm: "A section of Interstate 80 was closed for several hours Monday night after the snowy weather caused a tractor trailer crash." I also added a graph below, showing the temperature falling rapidly after the snow began.

ORIGINAL POST:

I can confirm what Meteo Madness Man (PREMIUM | PRO) has been reporting this evening, and I would have taken some video too had I not been on an ill-planned trip to the mall with my daughter. Conditions quickly became dangerous on the roads of State College as heavy snow reduced visibility to near zero, the temperature dropped quickly below freezing. Then heavy sleet mixed with the heavy snow. Traffic was bumper to bumper across the city during rush hour. I thought I'd never make it home. You can see the whiteout below from my webcam.

(LIVE)

Also check out this graph from The AccuWeather Weather Station, which, as we have discussed before, shows "evaporative cooling." This occurs when humidity increases rapidly because precipitation starts falling. In the atmosphere, when humidity goes up, temperature goes down.

As you can see, we fell from 36 degrees (safe for roads, even if it was snowing) to 31 degrees (unsafe; snow starts to stick if falling heavily enough). This caused the accident mentioned above as well as widespread traffic slowdowns I mentioned when roads became snow and sleet covered and slippery.