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AccuWeather Meteorologist and Social Media Manager Jesse Ferrell covers extreme weather and the intersection of meteorology and social media.
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Weather Blogs / WeatherMatrix
Crazy winter storm to bring tornadoes, high winds, treacherous ice and snow
Almost every weather threat comes with the first big winter storm of the year, and its a doozy.
By Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor
Updated Aug 7, 2020 4:14 PM EDT
For updates on this storm throughout the weekend, please follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
A large winter storm will bring all modes of severe weather to the eastern half of the nation into the weekend, triggering what is likely to be hundreds of thousands of power outages.
Ice and snow, record warmth, severe weather including tornadoes and high winds are all associated with the latest winter storm.
The most dangerous part of the upcoming winter storm will be the tornado threat today. The SPC has issued a Moderate Risk, which has never happened before in most of the areas affected. January tornado outbreaks generally hit the Deep South, not the ArkLaTex.
The Tornado Watch that's up now is also rare, occurring only twice during the Jan. 1-10 time period since 1997, and an earlier Severe Thunderstorm Watch covered Kansas, which has only happened one year prior in the first 10 days of the January.
Not shown above is the heavy ice and snow that will fall from the storm -- more than a foot in parts of Canada:
The National Weather Service is predicting 1-2 inches of ice for parts of northern New York state and into Canada. If that all falls as freezing rain, that will be devastating with widespread, long-term power outages in the Odgensburg area.
22 years ago today, the North American Ice Storm of 1998 was wrapping up in a similar area of New York and Canada, but ice amounts were in the incredible 2- to 6-inch range. The storm killed 35 and knocked out power for over 4 million customers!
The 1998 North American Ice Storm vs. this week's storm
Flooding and high winds will be a huge problem as well, and flood advisories are covering a large area already.
Flood watches & warnings from the NWS as of Friday morning.
Last but not least, the National Weather Service is calling for a January "heat wave" due to 122 high temperature records and 262 high minimum temperature records to be threatened ahead of the storm when temperatures in the 70s surge into West Virginia and Ohio with 60s from Buffalo to Boston. This will not only break records but make for immense temperature differences over miles.
Sunday morning, temperatures could range from 15 to 60 in northern New York (says the NMM model), with a range of 32 to 55 from one side of some towns to the other!