Concerned About Ice Storm and Flooding, Again...

NOTE: I attempted to publish this on the morning of December 23rd but it didn't take. My apologies. The storm is now in progress and I am adding raw video of the ice causing traffic accidents from Alabama through the Midwest.

The latest ice storm is upon us, and the question is: How much disruption to travel and how many power outages will it cause? Here's one of our forecast maps:

If we compare this to the the population Census population map, we can see that some big areas could be affected... Chicago is on the edge... Detroit is likely to see a lot of ice... Buffalo... unfortunately northwestern Massachusetts and surrounding area, devastated by the ice storm last week, are on the edge of influence of this one. But, in many areas, the ice will turn to rain, which will be more of a help the further east you get because the temperatures will be warmer and warmer, and eventually the ice will melt. Nonetheless, I think this could be a big news story with at least several hundred thousand losing power.

The travel disruption could be newsworthy as well, with Chicago and Detroit airports getting significant icing, but most of the major interstates will be south of the ice (the big exception being I-80). And most of the freezing rain will occur tonight into tomorrow morning -- most at risk would be people trying to get an early start on Christmas Eve travelling.

I'm also concerned again about flooding for Southwest Pennsylvania again. The forecasts for precipitation with this system look very similar to the actual rainfall charts from last time (if the NMM model, shown below, is correct - our official forecast calls for much less), and once again much of the area has snow on the ground. With temperatures warming quicker than last time, it could be even worse.