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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cant anyone see that we are living in the end of days, open up a bible and read. seasons running into each other, hurricanes,eathquakes oh and the increase of knowledge. God gave us his Word and people are still blind.
Send some snow to Canada.. we miss it
I live in northern Maine and im used to snow years we can get 180+ inches this year its mid january and we dont have 20....
The truth is: nobody knows what's going on.
We've been having tons of water in the Southeast of Brazil (where I live) whith hundreds of deaths, and severe droughts in the south, where the weather seemed to be moderate not long ago.
Tons of snow in the US, severe winters, extreme summers... Global warming maybe? Global freezing maybe?
The thing is: the climate has gone carzy everywhere.
Yeah, they love rubbing it in, Florida's the one place that would love to see it but never gets it
Hmm...... I would hate to be in chicago or new york city right now, because in california (Except the sierra neveda and northern northern california) its in the 70's-80's and gorgeous and so comfortable, I own a condo in southbeach and key west, and id take California's crazy weather over floridas humid, bi-polar weather anyday!
it just barely snowed in texas (north texas). the rest of the state is snow free. it NEVER snows where i live in south coastal texas. ive only seen snow once in my life, in 2004, which broke the record, and was the first ever recorded white christmas where i lived. it was also the first significant amount of snow since 1895, and about 5 inches of snow. for many of us, who had never experienced the beauty of snow, it was a true christmas miracle (it sure was funny seeing pictures of palm trees and desert plants covered in snow). i wish it would happen again, just one more time.
there's a lot of big flood news here in Philippines, specially here in Mindanao,
This weather will kill the Repubtards first. The world could do without them.
no snow in raleigh...however this map does remind me a lil of the movie, the day after tomorrow. did the gulf stream shut down?
There seems to be many wise people calling other people stupid and ignorant on this subject. How wise is that? We all know that money will dictate the future. The majority of the people that may not understand global warming (because it's cold out,)will definitely change their ways when oil begins to run low and prices go up. Calling people stupid is just not very convincing.
I live in Florida, so this has the opposite reaction on me. Everyone wants to move out of the cold weather and come to Florida. I wanna get out here and experience real cold weather! I mean, really... it's unfair that everybody gets some and we Floridians don't. I WANT SNOW!!
As every idiot knows, global warming is (1) about how hot the summer gets, not how cold the winter is, (2) the variability of climate extremes, and (3) the distribution of global circulation patterns. How much below 0C (32F) it doesn't really matter, ice won't melt. Every idiot that actually bothered to read the IPCC report at least.
Check out the Union of Concerned Scientists report on how "ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science." Who do you choose to believe, the majority of climate scientists who have spent years studying the issue or large corporations (i.e. oil, gas, coal) who choose to lose too many$$ What will happen if we ignore the scientists, everything they predict comes true, but it's finally to late to do anything about it?
Snow? Folks, its winter. By the way, 2010 was the 2nd warmest globally since records began... but don't let a few facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory by the world's meteorologists and climatologists, without any motivation....!