The southern states of the U.S. are facing a winter storm this week that will bring heavy snow and ice to a region that rarely experiences such conditions.
More than 220 million people are expected to be affected from Texas to South Carolina. Several states, including Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi, have each already declared a state of emergency following cold weather advisories and warnings from the National Weather Service (NWS). Texas has also ordered its agencies to prepare resources.
More than 2,200 domestic flights were cancelled by Jan. 21Tuesday, BBC reported, citing online tracker FlightAware.
On Jan. 20, NWS forecast the “historic winter storm” would bring “extreme cold temperatures … with lows near or below 20 degrees” Fahrenheit, or -6.7° Celsius, in southeast Texas. It warned that travel “will be extremely hazardous and not possible at times” on ice-slicked roads.
NWS said it doesn’t expect the storm to break the record 14 inches (35 centimeters) of snowfall that hit Houston in 1895, but it “should be considered a generational winter storm event and its impacts should be taken seriously.” In Louisiana, New Orleans is also experiencing a rare snow event.
Climate change is making such events more common. As the poles warm, the temperature difference between the Arctic and southern latitudes decreases, weakening the jet stream that acts as a barrier to the frigid Arctic air. A weak jet stream allows the cold air to move southward.
More than 75% of the U.S. will experience extreme winter weather this week, with several inches of snow expected in New York, Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia.
On the other side of the world, Australia is recovering from record-breaking rain brought by Tropical Cyclone Sean. Categorized as a category 4 storm on Jan. 20, Sean weakened to a category 3 as it moved out to sea.
Pilbara, a large, mostly dry region in Western Australia, was most affected, with several people having to be rescued as their vehicles were submerged in floodwaters. The storm broke the almost 20-year rainfall record of the town of Karratha in a single day.
Local news reported that in some areas the storm’s flooding had “transformed” the landscape, with children enjoying the rain.
“There was a little bit of a worrying time with flooding down the Bulgarra end of town, but once that cleared and everyone is safe and happy we’re just enjoying it now,” a resident told ABC News.
The rain is also welcome for many cattle ranches, or stations as they’re called in Australia, ensuring grass for grazing in the coming season.
“It looks like there’s another cloud band coming through. If it comes through we might pick up another 50mm [2 in], which we don’t really need to have but we won’t say no to,” Jeff McInnery, managing director of Pardoo Station in Pilbara, told ABC News.
Banner image of Tropical Cyclone Sean over Australia, courtesy of NASA.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
