Plains and Midwest hammered by major winter storm

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Alex DaSilva gives the latest updates on the major winter storm hitting the Plains and Midwest regions of the United States, bringing not just heavy snowfall, but also freezing rain.

Transcript

00:00Meteorologist here who's been talking about the snow, the ice, there's so many

00:04different faucets to this storm. As we talk about things though, what are you

00:08seeing right now as you start to look at the radar? Well we certainly see an

00:11expansive storm. This storm is going to be moving from the central plains all

00:15the way to the east coast and it's going to be bringing a mixed bag of

00:18precipitation as it does. We're going to be talking rain, freezing rain, sleet and

00:22snow and if you look at the radar here you can see the snow on the northern

00:25side and the plain rain on the southern side but that pink area that is the area

00:29we're concerned about, that's the battleground. That's where we're seeing

00:32sleet and freezing rain and so that is the area I'm really tracking closely

00:36right now. And it's interesting to see so many lightning strikes in that area too

00:40indicating that that precipitation was coming down so heavily but it goes

00:44beyond the radar then too. Yeah it certainly does. We're tracking the winds

00:48as well so we're talking about all this snow accumulation and the freezing rain

00:52accumulation and then you're adding on to that heavy winds and so that is why

00:56we're very concerned about power outages, downed trees in a lot of these areas

01:00across a widespread area all the way to the east coast. Yeah these are the

01:04sustained winds right now and the gusts could be 10 to 15 miles greater than

01:08what you're seeing here. Of course with this storm the center of it in Oklahoma

01:12it's going to keep pushing east impacting a lot more folks so let's get

01:15into some of those icy threats. Yeah the icy threat is what really concerns me

01:20right now because again you can have, you're putting down ice but you're

01:23also putting down snow on top of that ice and then you have the wind on top of

01:27that so that's where we really get into bad situations with downed trees, power

01:31outages. But look at how expansive this pink area is extending all the way from

01:35Kansas all the way to the east coast and then if you look at those darker pink

01:38areas that's the area where we're expecting half an inch potentially of

01:41freezing rain. And because of all that freezing rain that accumulates it

01:46doesn't really matter how much freezing rain you have you still have impacts at

01:50all different categories. Yeah and it doesn't take a lot to cause accidents on

01:54the highway you really only need a trace or so of ice to really cause those spin

01:57outs and we've already seen plenty of that across the state of Kansas and

02:01that's just going to keep moving east. Once you get into those higher amounts

02:04the half an inch amounts that's where we really see the problem start to mount.

02:08Half an inch of ice can add up to 500 pounds of weight to power lines and to

02:12trees that's where we really see those power outages really start to mount.

02:16We're already seeing some power outages in the plains right now and unfortunately

02:20I think that area is going to expand east and we could see widespread power

02:23outages eastern Kansas all the way to Kentucky. And those power outages fairly

02:29far-reaching. Well we want to thank you again Alex DaSilva as we continue to

02:33talk about this storm and it's trek eastward on this January weekend into

02:38the workweek too.

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