After big snow and ice events in the Southeast, Plains, and Midwest this week, 49 out of the 50 states currently have snow on the ground – yes, even Hawaii, where snow falls in Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea all winter.
The only state that has avoided this icy blast is Florida. Does that make you want to go on a nice, warm vacation to the Sunshine State? You're not alone.
Put another way, that means snow is present in 69.4 percent of the lower 48, which is more than double than December. This is extremely unusual, though it's hard to put a date on when this last happened because records aren't kept on this kind of event.
The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center combines ground reports and images from satellites in space to determine how much of the country is covered in snow. That's what you see in the image above. The images tell how deep and widespread the snow is, and that's important not only for images like this one, but also for computer weather models, which use the data to generate accurate forecasts. Such forecasts were very useful in predicting this week's winter storms.
Earlier this week, two storms began to churn: one in the northern Plains and Midwest, and one in Texas. The southern winter storm took a track across the Gulf Coast, pulling warm, moist air over an extreme arctic blast that set up over the eastern half of the United States late last week. This provided fuel for the storm to carve a path of snow, sleet, and freezing rain from Texas to the Carolinas.
Here in Atlanta, we're still coated in snow and ice and probably will be for the next couple of days. No one in the Southeast escaped the wrath except, of course, Florida.
But it's not over. Now that the southern-track storm has moved into the Atlantic and is moving north, the other Midwest storm is going to merge with it, creating a Nor'easter event that could dump up to two feet of snow in the Northeast. Winter storm warnings and advisories have been posted for the event - 32 states have winter storm advisories issued, by the way.
Here's how the snow forecast breaks down for some major cities:
Washington DC: 2-4 inches
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 4-6 inches
New York, N.Y.: 6-12 inches
Hartford, Connecticut: 15-20 inches
Boston, Massachusetts: 12-16 inches
The snow and cold started early this winter and has been extreme for most of the country. Usually the Southeast avoids the blast, but not in 2011. We're all feeling a little "snowed in" this winter.
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Dude It snowed very briefly where i live. I'm in PHOENIX, AZ!!! Maybe the world really is ending?
"This is extremely unusual, though it's hard to put a date on when this last happened because records aren't kept on this kind of event."
Maybe records should be kept on something like this. It would be something to disprove all the global warming fanatics who cry out everytime someplace gets a heat wave.
People Are so dumb!
well florida is the best and, u dont nead florida becauce u cant go there,, u dont have the many to go there
I know, let's all go start our cars and let then idle all day long, that way, the "warming" caused by our increased CO2 emmisions will help avoid snow storms! LOL
If this is "Gobal Warming", I sure don't want to see what "Global Cooling" would be like.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Length: 1:15:56
The Ice is Melting, the Hurricanes are blowing. and it is all YOUR FAULT SCARED Don't Be, Its not True.
Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647#
Read a story about how magnetic north is moving towards Russia at a 40 mile a year rate, wont be long before Florida will be freezeing just like the rest of us.
I laugh at global warming alarmists how they keep trying to push this fairy tale, 'now cooling is the new warming , whats next,I can hardly wait!!!
Hey dont say anything bad about our awesome facist goverment our the brownshirts will be kicking down your door,
That darn global warming! Look what it's doing to our weather patterns. Yeah, right!!!! Has anyone seen Al Gore lately? He must be keeping a low profile.
HEAT WAAAAVE!!!!!!! XD
Boy! Was Al Gore right! Look at all that Global Warming on the Ground! Don't touch that White stuff. I think it may be part of the ozone layer that fell to earth!
Please, not another news article tempting people to come down to Florida.
We have snowbirds enough already.
It is cold (sometimes). It is unpleasant. We just do not have snow days and pretty white scenery to make the cold bearable.
You know what we do have? Aged tourists driving slow, tipping poorly, pronouncing words obnoxiously, and having very self-important debates about the correct word for a carbonated beverage.
As much as I love snow, I hate to shovel it. When we get snow, there is that great feeling of "Oh we will have a snow day or a half day or whatever." The only downside to that is, since you're home doing nothing, your parents are going to make you shovel. Especially being the older brother in the household. Since I live in New Jersey, we have had a lot of snow lately, whether it be the huge storm we had Monday after Christmas (where we got 30") or today when we got like 8", there will be no way to stop it. No matter what, snow is a natural occurance that can never stop, and us humans just have to live with it. There's nothing "bad" about the whole country being cold. It's just more snow ten usual. My parents remember being here in 1996 when there was a HUGE storm week after week. It's a cycle as you can see. Weather has always been occuring in a cycle. Some years the US is colder, and sometimes it isn't. It just depends.
I love it when the climate change believers say,"climate change means unpredictable, sometimes drastic weather". By rule, weather is unpredictable and drastic. The best trick they have ever pulled is to convince people that changing weather patterns and extreme weather is abnormal. I laugh at you.