First winter storm of many forces water rescues, knocks out power and creates dangerous travel conditions
By Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologist
(CNN) — A wide-reaching storm forced water rescues, knocked out power to tens of thousands and made for dangerous travel as it hit the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Thursday.
It’s a preview of the frenetic winter storm activity to come this month. At least two other storms are expected into next week, including one that hit California Thursday and will impact the same regions over the weekend.
Very heavy rain on the southern, warmer side of Thursday’s storm prompted the first flash flood emergencies of the year in parts of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Flash flood emergencies are the most severe level of flash flood warning and indicate that life-threatening flooding is occurring.
First responders performed at least 20 water rescues Thursday in West Virginia’s Kanawha County, where Charleston is located. Some roads in the county remained impassible due to flooding mid-morning, according to county manager Jeremy Young.
“We can’t stress enough to not drive through high water for any reason at all,” first responders in Kanawha County urged on social media Thursday morning.
There were also multiple tornado warnings as a line of severe thunderstorms tracked across Kentucky and into West Virginia Thursday morning. At least one confirmed tornado spawned from these storms near Booneville, in eastern Kentucky’s Owsley County, while there were reports of a possible tornado causing “significant damage and injury” in Tennessee’s Morgan County. The National Weather Service also warned that the possible tornado had damaged several houses and toppled trees.
More than 90,000 homes and businesses lost power in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Thursday because of severe thunderstorms and ice.
An icy mix stretched from central Virginia into Upstate New York and parts of New England Thursday — including in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.
Dangerous amounts of ice up to 0.30 inches accumulated in parts of Pennsylvania, western Maryland and West Virginia. It was enough to weigh down trees and power lines — causing power outages — and made travel dangerous to borderline impossible.
Traffic crashes were reported in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania Thursday morning in the icy mess.
Two people were injured when a transport ambulance rolled over and crashed in eastern Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill County Thursday morning, CNN affiliate WFMZ reported. Sleet and freezing rain were ongoing in the region at the time, weather observations show.
Flight delays and cancellations also stacked up. More than 500 flights into or out of the US were cancelled and 2,800 were delayed. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Boston and the New York City area experienced the most issues.
Snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain expanded into much of New England Thursday afternoon after precipitation largely ended in southern parts of the Northeast.
Precipitation will fully come to an end by the evening for much of the Northeast but linger into the earliest hours of Friday morning in northern New England. It will remain slick where air temperatures remain near or below freezing.
More storms incoming
The ongoing storm is just the first of an incredibly active stretch of winter storms expected across the northern tier of the US over the next week or two.
The jet stream, essentially a river of air in the atmosphere that storms flow through, is locked in an almost perfect line from west to east, and will continue to funnel storms across the northern tier of the Lower 48.
New storms will arrive every few days until the jet stream shifts — something that might not happen until the second half of February.
The next storm will take less than 72 hours to go from coast to coast. It pushed into the West Coast Thursday night, and will track through the northern Rockies and northern Plains Friday before strengthening Saturday.
Central and Northern California saw up to three inches of rain over 24 hours as of late Thursday, with flood watches in place north of the San Francisco Bay area until Friday afternoon.
The storm has prompted wind alerts for around 30 million people across the West through Friday morning, where gusts to 55 mph are possible. Gusts to this level could blow down tree limbs and cause scattered power outages.
The storm’s exact timing, type and amount of precipitation could shift, but another bout of disruptive icing is possible for the Midwest and Northeast. Some areas will only have a little over 24 hours between when impacts from the first storm end and troubles from the second one begin.
Snow will begin early Saturday over the northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Precipitation will expand as the storm is boosted by atmospheric energy to its south and a mix of freezing rain and rain will stretch from Missouri to the central Appalachians by Saturday morning while snow falls over the Great Lakes.
There could be a dry gap for the start of Saturday between the two areas of wintry precipitation that includes an area from Chicago to Cleveland. These dry areas will eventually fill in with an icy mix by the late afternoon.
A mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow will spread over Pennsylvania by Saturday night. The same messy mix will reach the rest of the Northeast overnight. Slightly more snow is possible in New England during this weekend’s storm than with the ongoing storm Thursday, but some mixing is still likely to tamp down snow totals.
Additional storms are possible next week for the eastern half of the country as the active pattern continues. Forecast models are hinting at another wide-reaching storm next Tuesday and Wednesday, and yet another storm around the middle of the month.
CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas contributed to this report.
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