Rare Winter Storm in the Southeast and Gulf Coast Today into Wednesday

A rare winter storm continues tonight across the Gulf Coast and the Southeast to the Mid-Atlantic with as much as 6 to 10 inches of snow forecast from northeast South Carolina to southeast Virginia.  Snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain began last night and continued today into tonight with numerous traffic accidents and power outages.  States of Emergency have been declared for Louisiana, North Carolina and Alabama.  At 8:00 p.m. light snow was falling in Atlanta, 21 degrees.  The snow is forecast to end late tonight. Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, SC is now closed this evening.  It will be very cold tonight and tomorrow night in Atlanta with lows in the mid to upper teens.  Highs on Wednesday will only be near 31 but it will warm-up to near 60 on Friday.  

George Wright is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist for Wright Weather Consulting, LLC. Visit our website at WrightWeather.com. Follow George Wright on Twitter @gwweather.

More Arctic Cold for this Weekend from Minnesota to New York...Light Snow on Saturday

An intense fast moving area of low pressure tracking across Ontario and Quebec will push a strong cold front through the Northeast by Saturday evening.  There is enough moisture and lift to provide from 1 to 3 inches of the north and west of New York City and across the Great Lakes to about 1 inch in the city, across Long Island and central and southern New Jersey.  The temperatures will plummet again into the single digits to below zero Saturday night into early next week.  Remarkably, snow, sleet and freezing rain occurred today from the coast of Texas to the Panhandle of Florida.  It was 35 and cloudy at noon today in Pensacola and 33 with sleet in New Orleans.  It was 44 and partly sunny today at noon in Jacksonville, FL. Wind chills will plunge down to -40 to -50 across the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes tonight and Saturday night.  A large portion of the Great Lakes are frozen and as a result, the lake effect snow will be reduced.  The cold air will last through a good portion of next week with another shot of cold air again early next week.  Right now the weather for the Super Bowl a week from this Sunday in the Meadowlands of New Jersey appears to be wet for part of the day with some clearing at night. The GFS model is forecasting a changeover from snow, sleet and freezing rain to rain by Sunday morning with clearing by game time.  Drought conditions continue in the West with the long range forecast for some cooler weather and some much needed rain late next week or the following weekend.     

George Wright is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist for Wright Weather Consulting, LLC. George is also a meteorologist with ABC News and Cablevision News 12. Our website is WrightWeather.com.