Heavy windstorm and blizzard hit mid-US

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Winds are expected to blow up to 65 and 75 mph over the plains, combining with snow to create blizzard conditions for nearly 2 million people in the Upper Midwest.

The storm has already left some 700,000 customers in the Pacific Northwest without power. Parts of eastern Montana and the Dakotas on Wednesday reported near hurricane-force winds in a spring heat.

“The strong winds will usher in more seasonal conditions with temperatures typically between 30 and 40 on Thursday,” CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said.

As the storm surges head into the Midwest, the cold air behind the system will be greeted with enough moisture to trigger persistent snowfall, gusty winds, and periods of blizzard in parts of Minnesota. , Iowa, Wisconsin and the East Dakotas.

“Traveling can become impossible due to the winds and zero visibility with blizzard conditions,” warns CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

However, the system is in no rush to move around the region, as the impacts could linger until Friday for millions of people across the Great Lakes.

Prolonged snowfall, accompanied by periods of heavy lake-effect snowfall on the southern shores of Lake Superior, will result in extensive 3-6 inch snow cover in the Upper Midwest, with the highest totals likely being between 6 and 10 inches in Minnesota. and northern Wisconsin.

As the system moves east from Thursday night through Friday, periods of snow, rain and a winter mix will affect parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Rain and snow hit the northeast on Friday evening

A secondary low pressure system will form along the cold front as the system reaches the east coast from Friday evening to Saturday morning.

While it promises to bring a soggy start to the weekend for the northeast, most of the region will see rain, not snow, thanks to the relatively mild temperatures in January.

Places like New York and Boston will be in their mid to 40s on Saturday with half an inch to an inch of rain, as opposed to the several inches of snow they would see if temperatures were colder.

Snowfall Friday night and Saturday will be limited to upstate New York and northern New England. In most cases, even these spots should only see 2 to 5 inches, although a few of the higher elevation prime spots may see more than half a foot of snow.

The storm earlier in the week gave several cities in the Pacific Northwest the wettest start to the year on record. And by early Thursday morning, there were nearly 245,000 customers still without power in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, according to data from PowerOutages.US.

The strong winds produced by the storm were the air pressure difference between a strong area of ​​high pressure in the southwest and the low coming from the northwest.

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