Tag Archives: U.S. Midwest

Worst is over for winter storm that clobbered U.S. Midwest, D.C. and New England

Visitors make their way through snow left by Winter Storm Gia, which paralyzed much of the nation's midsection, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 13, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – The deadly winter storm that clobbered a swath of the U.S. Midwest and East Coast over the weekend is blowing out to sea but leaves as much as 13 inches of snow in Washington, D.C. and Virginia, and frigid arctic air parked over New England.

All Washington D.C. federal offices would be closed on Monday, but train and bus service in the metro D.C. area would resume after being shut down on Sunday, officials said.

“There’s some digging out to do,” Jim Hayes, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said early Monday.

“In Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, 6-to-12 inches of snow fell with some places getting 13 inches,” he said.

The good news is that around noon on Monday the clouds should start clearing and temperatures will rise into the low 40’s Fahrenheit, Hayes said.

The snowstorm is blamed for the deaths of at least eight people in road accidents across the U.S. Midwest and possibly also the death of an Illinois state police officer who was killed on Saturday during a traffic stop, officials said.

Air traffic at Ronald Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport was returning to normal. Early on Monday, fewer than 400 flights were canceled in affected areas and about 1,600 were delayed, according the online flight tracking site FlightAware.

At the height of the storm, more than 1,600 flights were canceled in and out of U.S. airports on Sunday, the bulk of them at Washington’s Reagan and Dulles, the website reported.

Winter storm warnings for millions of Americans in 10 states and Washington, D.C., were being lifted early Monday in a swath of the United States from Colorado to the East Coast, Hayes said.

“But up north it’s going to stay cold,” Hayes said.

Boston temperatures will creep up from the teens (Fahrenheit) into the low 20s. Temperatures in Portland, Maine will top-out at 11 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 Celsius) as a core of Arctic air stays parked over New England, Hayes said.

“The worst is in Big Black River, Maine,” said Hayes. “It hit minus 20 (minus 29 Celsius) overnight.”

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Peter Graff)

Aliens, apocalypse, lightning? … No, just a meteor rocking Michigan

A meteor is caught on security camera footage in a residential area in Newport, Michigan, U.S., January 16, 2018 in this still image from video

(Reuters) – A bright meteor briefly swept across the sky over parts of the U.S. Midwest and Canada on Tuesday, weather and geology agencies said, and then caused a powerful explosion that rattled homes and onlookers.

The meteor was seen across the region in places such as Ohio, Michigan and Ontario at about 8 p.m. local time and registered a 2.0 magnitude tremor about 4 miles (7 km) east of Saint Clair Shores in Eastern Michigan, the United States Geological Survey said on its website.

A car dash cam captures a view of a meteor near Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S., January 16, 2018 in this still image from video obtained from social media.

A car dash cam captures a view of a meteor near Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S., January 16, 2018 in this still image from video obtained from social media. Youtube Mike Austin/via REUTERS

The National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed it was not a meteorological event but more likely a meteor.

“The NWS can confirm the flash and boom was NOT thunder or lightning, but instead a likely meteor,” the NWS in Detroit said on Twitter.

The meteor sighting lit up social media with people posting videos and reaction.

“I can’t believe there was a Meteor! It shook our house and made a large bang! We thought someone hit our house,” Twitter user Jennifer Wilson said in a post.

 

Others had more ominous thoughts.

“I thought for sure I was either seeing the alien invasion or the apocalypse. It’s awesome in retrospect, freaky … in real time,” said a Twitter user who goes by the name Crash.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Paul Tait)

Ice storm targets central United States

empty runway at natioanal airport due to ice

Reuters) – An ice storm heading for the central United States is threatening to cause power outages and create treacherous travel conditions on Friday and into the weekend, the National Weather Service said.

Ice, freezing rain and winter storm warnings were in effect for a large swathe of the Plains, from the Texas panhandle north into Iowa and east through central Indiana, the Weather Service said in an advisory.

“Significant amounts of ice accumulations will make travel dangerous or impossible,” the weather service said. “Travel is strongly discouraged. Commerce will likely be severely impacted.”

Ice accumulation could be more than half an inch (1 cm) depending on local temperatures, creating slick roadways especially on bridges and overpasses, and possibly causing scattered power outages across the region, the service said.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for the entire state ahead of the storm.

“Emergency personnel are coordinating with state and local officials to ensure we are prepared and ready for whatever comes our way,” said Fallin.

A handful of public school districts and universities in Idaho, Oklahoma and other parts of the central region have either canceled classes on Friday or had delayed openings due to the impending storm.

Parts of the region could also see as much as 3 inches (8 cm) of snow later in the weekend, according to the forecast.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Bernadette Baum)

Earthquakes Shake Oklahoma; San Francisco

The last 24 hours have shown active seismic activity in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

A significant magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck Oklahoma Monday afternoon near the town of Cherokee, OK.  The shaking of the quake was reported outside the Sooner State in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) also reported a second quake striking near Pawnee, OK about half an hour later with a magnitude of 3.2.  Then a few minutes after the Pawnee quake, a second quake struck in the area of the Cherokee quake that measured 3.7 on the Richter scale.

The USGS said all the quakes were around three miles deep.

Local officials said there were no injuries or significant damage from the quakes.

In San Francisco, a magnitude 4.0 quake struck the San Francisco area on Tuesday.

The USGS says the quake struck around 2:30 a.m. near Fremont, or 35 southeast of San Francisco.  The quake struck at a depth of 5 miles.

No injuries or significant property damage was reported in the Fremont quake.