After winter blast, heavy rains and melting snow could lead to major problems
After winter blast, heavy rains and melting snow could lead to major problems
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Winter storms strike more than a dozen states
Two powerful snow systems were moving across the US, threatening to drop up to 12 inches of snow in some spots.
A winter storm lashing parts of the Midwest with heavy snow and the East with a wintry mix Thursday threatened to hammer a stretch of the Southeast with thunderstorms and brought new concerns over flooding and ice jams.
As the storm moved across the nation's northern tier, some thunderstorms in parts of the Florida Panhandle, southeastern Alabama and Georgia could fuel torrential downpours and gusty winds, AccuWeather said.
Parts of Virginia and West Virginia hit with up to a foot of snow this week were facing a fast melt along with rain and mixed precipitation.
"The risk of flooding may also extend into portions of the Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic, where rain combines with melting snow and ice jams on area streams and rivers," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said.
Another atmospheric river was bringing heavy rain to most parts of California this week, raising concerns over flooding on the heels of an earlier system that broke daily rainfall records, triggered evacuations and led to multiple deaths. The latest bout of rain set in along the central coast of California and the San Francisco Bay area Tuesday and will continue to ramp up Thursday, according to AccuWeather.
The added rain comes as several rivers in Northern California were still near their flood stage after last week's deluge. In Southern California, large swaths of burned land from recent wildfires remain vulnerable to the rain and could quickly become sites of mudslides, forecasters warned.
"This atmospheric river will bring with it multiple inches of rain from the North Bay Area all the way down the coast to San Diego," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Jacob Hinson in an online forecast, adding that most areas will see 1 to 2 inches of rain by Friday.
− Christopher Cann
After a tumultuous weather week, a third storm could be looming as well, forecasters said.
A strong Pacific storm could move across the Mountain West, weather.com said, and become a major winter system in the Plains, Midwest and Northeast this weekend. The South could face more drenching rains and severe thunderstorms.
Forecasters said the snow that fell in the Mid-Atlantic Tuesday was dry and fluffy to the north of Washington, D.C., but heavier and wetter to the south. Why is this? Air temperature is the primary factor in determining the kind of snow that falls. While powdery snow is loved by skiers, wet snow is hard to shovel (but great for making snowmen).
Wet snow occurs when the air temperature near the surface is above freezing, causing the snowflakes to partially melt before reaching the surface, CompuWeather said in an online report.
"This causes the snowflakes to become sticky and easily adhere to and accumulate on nearly all outdoor surfaces," CompuWeather meteorologist Eric DeRoche said. Read more here.
− Doyle Rice
Contributing: Susan Miller
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