Weekend winter storm could cause widespread power outages for a huge swath of the US

AccuWeather

A major winter storm is set to sweep across the Midwest and into the East Coast from Saturday into Monday, with dangerous ice accumulation expected in addition to snow and rain.

Transcript

00:00Some snow breaks out up into Montana, North and South Dakota, and into eastern Wyoming.

00:05There will be also, I want to mention, freezing fog tomorrow morning in Denver.

00:10In advance of this storm, look out for big delays tomorrow morning in Denver.

00:14Freezing fog, it won't be even measurable, but a trace of moisture there can slicken

00:20and glaze surfaces. You'll get down into the low 20s with some fog, not a good combination.

00:24But into Kansas, southern parts of Nebraska, snow and ice will begin to break out.

00:29And as we move deeper into the day on Sunday, you can see we have snow,

00:32ice, and some rain. Some thunderstorms will break out farther south near the Gulf Coast,

00:36Louisiana, Mississippi, East Texas. Some of those storms could be severe.

00:40But particularly into parts of the Ohio Valley here in this pink zone,

00:44the freezing rain will be a huge problem. After beginning of snow, you'll see a switch over to

00:50ice for some. Cincinnati, predominantly seeing snow with this storm. Sunday, your average high

00:54is 40. You're only around 27. And the snow sets in here into Cincinnati, Ohio.

00:59So in this area, we're looking at, again, widespread snow, 6 to 12 inches of snow

01:04into Cincinnati. Around 6 or so in Indianapolis, a little less north of Talbot to Fishers,

01:09more though south into Bloomington. In St. Louis, you're also on the edge of 3 to 6 to the south,

01:146 plus for the northern suburbs. Indianapolis, specifically, 3 to 6 inches of snow beginning 1

01:20p.m. Sunday and continuing through much of the day on Monday, tapering off in the afternoon.

01:24Look for this AccuWeather Wintercast feature. Look for those snowflake icons at the top of

01:28your screen on the app and on accuweather.com whenever you have snow or ice in your forecast.

01:34And 31 million of us are facing an ice threat Sunday into Monday. For the central U.S. year,

01:39you can see it's most prolific here into south-central Missouri, along Interstate 44 and

01:45Rolla, west to Springfield, up into Bolivar, Missouri, and into other areas, even west into

01:50Wichita. It's going to be a big storyline. But the most long-lasting power outages may be into

01:55Carbondale, Illinois, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Paducah, Kentucky, into Evansville, and other

02:01areas like Lexington, Kentucky. It was 15 years ago this month that we had a tremendous ice storm

02:06for parts of the Southern Plains and the Ohio Valley. We don't want to repeat that. But Kansas

02:11City will see some snow, but also some ice. More than half of the storm will come down in snow

02:15form in Kansas City. But that will mitigate some of the ice potential, but not all of it. And you

02:21can see that we're dealing with a large area here with a quarter to a half inch of ice near and

02:26mainly just barely south of Interstate 64. So that puts a lot of us here in the Saturday afternoon

02:32through Sunday west of the dash line area facing some big-time ice. Bree's going to talk about the

02:37eastern part of this area. But power outage risk is very significant. And when it comes to

02:43thunderstorms, 23 million are facing the severe thunderstorm threat on Sunday, especially around

02:49Louisiana into Mississippi. Damaging winds are the main motivator behind that issue here. So we have

02:54a big day of live coverage planned through the day on Sunday because of all these threats here. And

02:59at that time, it's going to be moving into the mid-Atlantic states here, Bree. Yeah, and it's

03:02really going to build here when it comes to that ice threat, the snow threat as we head further

03:08east. And a lot of people are going to be impacted by the storm. I'm happy that you mentioned or I'm

03:13glad that you mentioned the power outage issue that we are concerned about here as we head into

03:19the weekend as we do have a lot of ice. And ice is not good for power lines. And in fact, we have

03:25about 31 million customers, people going to be impacted by this storm as we head into Sunday,

03:31Monday. So that's a lot of people that could be without power. We are tracking this storm,

03:37especially as it heads further east with it spreading that winter chill and that winter

03:43precipitation, ice, snow, rain, anywhere that you see shaded in that magenta. Further to the north,

03:48we have the snow. And further to the south, we still have that line of storms. We're going to

03:53focus on the ice for this one, though. Sunday into Monday, we are talking about significant or even

03:58severe ice impacts extending through Kentucky, down through West Virginia, Charleston, Roanoke

04:04included. And Fredericksburg could be impacted by some ice. In fact, in Roanoke, we could see

04:09upwards to a half of an inch of ice. And as that ice accumulates, that's when we can start to see

04:15those problems, not just on the roadways, but also on the power lines. That's going to be our high

04:20confidence probability starting late Sunday into Monday afternoon. Richmond, a similar boat, this

04:26goes through early Monday. We could see upwards to a quarter of an inch of ice. Let's play it out

04:31for you. As this freezing rain really gets going, you can see that warm nose making its way on

04:37through, changing that precipitation over quickly to that freezing rain. Really a lot there in

04:42Lexington. That goes across southern Indiana, the Ohio Valley, eventually spreading right towards

04:48the mid-Atlantic, even off towards the coast. You'll see some of those impacts here. Fredericksburg

04:54into the Baltimore, Washington, D.C. area, you'll see more in the way of snow. But further to the

05:00south, that's where we have that rain. So really being thrown everything with this storm. And we

05:07are anticipating, of course, some of those bigger impacts, especially even as we head into early

05:12Monday, as we head closer towards that I-95 corridor. It's not looking pretty even as we

05:18head into Monday morning for that commute.

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