Arthur J. Villasanta – Fourth Estate Contributor
New York, NY, United States (4E) – The strongest winter storm in U.S historical past is presently pummelling the northeastern United States with unprecedented snow and ice, and is unleashing unprecedented winter distress on tens of millions extra Americans after ravaging the mid-Atlantic states for the previous few days.
This monster “bomb cyclone” shifting alongside the East Coast explosively intensified Wednesday evening to develop into what some specialists now think about the strongest East Coast winter storm in fashionable historical past.
“This storm is intense,” tweeted the National Weather Service (NWS). “Expect the unexpected.”
NWS warned the storm’s highly effective winds will trigger energy outages. On Thursday afternoon, wind gusts of 70 mph have been recorded in coastal Massachusetts.
The fast-moving winter hurricane, nonetheless, is predicted to go away by Thursday night when the blizzard warnings finish. There might be no respite from winter distress, nonetheless, since a mammoth chilly entrance is forecast to crash south, which would be the coldest blast since Christmas Eve within the Northeast.
This uncommon winter storm that buried components of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with ice and snow on Jan. three intensified the following evening.
Between the mornings of Jan. three and four, the hurricane strengthened at an astounding price, and exceeded the meteorological standards for a “bomb cyclone.” This kind of storm happens when strain falls 24 millibars in 24 hours.
This storm’s strain plunged 53 millibars in 21 hours (and 59 millibars in 24 hours), which makes it a document breaker by way of depth and distress.
Blizzard warnings lengthen from the Virginia Tidewater area up the coast to japanese Maine, together with Ocean City, Atlantic City, japanese Long Island, Boston and Portland, Maine. These areas have all been hit by extraordinarily heavy snow, exceeding a foot in some areas, and wind gusts of no less than 40 to 60 mph.
Heavy snow and winds gusting to 30 mph have been hammering New York City. Whiteout circumstances quickly suspended flights on the John F. Kennedy International Airport the place the wind gusts hit 55 mph. Central Park reported 7.eight inches of snow at 1:00 p.m. on Jan. four.
Boston was slammed by heavy snow and wind gusts reaching 40 mph late Thursday morning into the afternoon. Boston’s Logan Airport reported 6.5 inches of snow within the early afternoon.
The storm started two days in the past within the Gulf of Mexico. It first struck Georgia and raked the Florida Panhandle with ice, sleet, rain and snow earlier than shifting up the Mid-Atlantic coast.
As a lot as six inches of snow and zero.5 inches of ice caked parts of north Florida, southeast Georgia and coastal South Carolina on the morning of Jan. three. Tallahassee noticed its first snowfall in 28 years.
In Savannah, ice modified over to snow, and amassed to a depth of greater than an inch, one of many snowiest days within the metropolis’s historical past.
NWS issued a uncommon alert for “heavy freezing rain” alongside your complete South Carolina coast on Jan. three earlier than the precipitation turned over to snow in the course of the afternoon. In Charleston, NWS reported snow was “pouring,” and reachd 5 inches excessive. This made Jan. three town’s third snowiest day on document.
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