Then, Sublett woke up Wednesday morning. “I look at the data again, and I say, ‘Oh, crap,'” he says. Models were now structuring the storm very differently.
“Some of the data is showing heavy amounts of snow in my area of central Virginia,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m buying it hook, line and sinker just yet. But it’s a serious piece of data that suggests heavy freezing rain, which is the type of precipitation that’s liquid until it touches something and then freezes. That’s the thing that puts load on power lines. That’s the thing that puts load on trees and brings them over power lines.”
Meteorologists who spoke to WIRED say it’s still too early to tell how this weekend’s storm is going to affect different areas of the country. But, he says, people in many states should start thinking about the weekend and next week, and keep an eye on the latest forecasts from local reliable sources over the next few days.
On Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service released a series of potential forecasts on the upcoming storm — called “key messages,” predicting heavy snowfall to begin in the Rocky Mountains and Plains on Friday and move to the East Coast on Sunday. Freezing rain and sleet are expected in the southern states of the snow belt. Maps provided by the NWS show the storm impacted about 30 states, from as far west as New Mexico and Texas, as far south as Maine and as far south as Georgia.
There is still much uncertainty about how the storm will form and how it will affect specific areas. “We know this storm system is completely submerged,” says atmospheric scientist and meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, who contributes to The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. Cappucci says the system collected a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, guaranteeing some type of precipitation over much of the southern and eastern United States. But there is still uncertainty about how other atmospheric elements will shape the storm. It involves a cold, low-pressure vortex of air in the upper levels of the atmosphere (called an upper level low in meteorological parlance) forming over the Pacific Ocean, the formation of which will help determine how and where precipitation will fall.
“A wide area of the southern and eastern United States will see more than 2 inches of water,” Cappucci says. “Whether it comes as rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain or a combination, the wild card will remain.”
Sublett says National Weather Service announcements are not winter weather warnings, but “messages”; As the storm develops, forecasts will become more specific. But there is enough data available to start preparing for the worst. Many of the areas hit by the storm are historically unprepared for extreme winter conditions: a 2014 ice storm that hit parts of Georgia and South Carolina left some areas without power for several days. The storm will arrive just weeks before the fifth anniversary of the winter storm that caused power outages in Texas for two weeks and ultimately killed about 250 people.
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