ATLANTA (AP) — With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the northern part of the nation, a new storm will roll in this weekend that could blanket roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide swath of the South.
The storm arriving later this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “potentially widespread catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.
Forecasters warned Tuesday that ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.
“If you get half an inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — it could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, CEO of Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina.
Here’s what you need to know:
“Great bands” of heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain are expected
The National Weather Service warned of “large swaths of heavy snow, sleet and treacherous freezing rain” beginning Friday across much of the nation’s midsection and then moving toward the East Coast by Sunday.
Temperatures will warm slowly in many areas, meaning ice forming on roads and sidewalks could stick around, forecasters say.
The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it’s headed — remained uncertain Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be difficult to accurately predict which areas could see rain and which could be punished with ice.
Cold air collides with rain to fuel ‘major winter storm’
An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to sink south of Canada, creating a collision with cold temperatures and rains that will flow eastward into the southern US.
“This is extreme, even for this being the height of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.
When the cold air meets the rain, the result is likely to be “a major winter storm with very strong weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and meeting all this particularly cold air pouring in,” Jackson said.
An atmospheric river could set up in the southern US
An atmospheric river of moisture could set in by the weekend, pulling precipitation into Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing into Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.
“Global models paint a worrying picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential in North Georgia and parts of central Georgia,” according to the Atlanta office of the National Weather Service.
If significant ice accumulations hit metro Atlanta, it could be a problem over the weekend, as low temperatures Monday morning are expected to be around 22 degrees (minus 5.6 Celsius) in Atlanta. The city’s high temperature on Monday is forecast to be around 35 degrees (1.7 Celsius).
Highway and air travel could be disrupted by the storm
Travel is a major concern because southern states have less equipment to clear snow and ice from roads, and the extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could keep the ice from melting for several days. In Michigan, more than 100 vehicles crashed into each other or slid off a highway southwest of Grand Rapids on Monday.
The storm is also expected to affect many of the nation’s major airports, including those in Dallas; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Canada’s polar air to keep the northern states in a deep freeze
Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week “will be the coldest on record,” Jackson said.
“There is an extended low-pressure vortex centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the northern Canadian sea, which is connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And that dominates the weather across North America.”
Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South
Some of the storm’s first impacts could occur in Texas on Friday as the arctic air mass slides south across much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a storm briefing.
“At the same time, we expect the rain to move across much of the state,” Shamburger said.
Low temperatures could drop into the 20s or even the twenties in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a mix of wintry weather in the northern part of the state.
Forecasters warned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly about the amount of ice or snow that could fall in north and central Texas.
“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.
At an Arkansas hardware store, customers are preparing for the storm
In Little Rock, Arkansas, a steady stream of customers were stocking up at Fuller and Son Hardware on Tuesday.
“Right now, parents of young children are getting sleds,” said James Carter, the company’s chief operating officer.
People were also getting shovels, ice melters and outdoor faucet covers to keep them from freezing, as low temperatures in the Little Rock area were forecast to drop into the twenties, he said.
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Panjwani reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein in Washington and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina contributed.