On January 8th, 2024, at 7:50 am, The weather advisory team sent out a winter advisory for the Southern and Central plains. The advisory said that two inches of snow could fall every hour. That advisory could last until January 10th. A foot of snow had landed in Massachusetts by Sunday afternoon, leaving 13,000 homes without power. That number had dropped to 5,600 by Monday morning. A blizzard is expected in the Plains of northeast New Mexico, eastern Colorado, the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, western Kansas, and southwest Nebraska. The weather service had issued a warning stating that along the central Gulf coast there will be severe thunderstorms Monday night into Tuesday with very strong winds and risks of tornadoes and flash floods.
A girl was pinned under a large tree that had fallen over due to very strong winds in Fairfax California. She was later hospitalized and her condition has not been made public as of now. New York was hit with what they call a ” classic nor’easter” over the weekend, a storm that dumped a foot of snow and caused severe flood risks. On the West Coast, two powerful storm systems are due to pass over the Northwest on Monday night, bringing several feet of snow with them.
More than 9 million people were under a level 3 out of 5 storm threat, from Texas to Florida. Heavy rainfall will accelerate snowmelt and increase the amount of water in the waterways. The National Weather Service office in Boston noted that they might need to issue hurricane-force-wind watches- warnings of winds akin to Category 1 hurricane- for coastal areas if the storm’s worst forecast fears came to pass. Dangerous rip currents are likely to occur throughout the week. People in those areas need to stay alert, stay protected, and stay inside if they are in one of the affected areas.
