Children dream and Christmas carols sing white Christmases, but they don’t want the kind of confusing and potentially destructive winter storm that is expected to sweep across the eastern half of the United States on Christmas Eve.
Heavy snow and blizzard conditions in the Great Plains on Wednesday will be at the forefront of what the National Weather Service described as a “wide range of dangerous weather” waited until Christmas Day, interrupting holiday travel and potentially turning off the sparkling lights all the way to the east coast. Tornadoes are possible even in Florida.
Some utilities are already canceling the holiday for energy teams, anticipating that they may be needed to restore electricity – “a clearly difficult decision,” said Reid Lamberty, spokesman for Eversource Energy in New England, “but it was a decision necessary because of the time of the storm. ”
Heavy cold and considerable snowfall are expected on Thursday in much of the central part of the country, including the Upper Midwest and the east of the Ohio River Valley, while heavy rains and floods are forecast for Christmas Eve in the states of the Middle Atlantic and Northeast.
Wind gusts from up to 60 miles per hour in the New York area on Thursday night, they can cause damage to scattered trees and power outages, meteorologists said, while heavy rains can flood the roads on Christmas morning, making the trip dangerous. But temperatures are likely to remain too high around New York City for the rain to freeze.
This will not be true in parts of the South, which are expected to see below average holiday temperatures. Knoxville, Tennessee, was able to see its first significant snowfall at Christmas – an inch or two – for the first time since 2010, he said. Rick garuckas, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn.
“It will be a very cold Christmas for many people,” said Garuckas.
Storms can disrupt air travel, especially in the midwest. Despite warnings from the federal government that Americans should be stopped this Christmas, airports are expected to be busy, although not as crowded as they would be on a pre-pandemic holiday. More than a million travelers a day went through airport security last weekend, about half the number on the same dates in 2019.
In Florida, storms are expected across the state on Thursday, potentially generating tornadoes. Temperatures are expected to drop dramatically, from almost 80 in the Jacksonville area to 30 at night, with the cold feeling of the wind making it even colder.
Arctic air will flow from the Upper Midwest. In parts of Minnesota, heavy snowfall and temperatures that drop to peak levels can result in a sudden freeze on Wednesday night.
As in New York City, New England mainly expects strong winds and rain. Central Maine Power suggested people take standard precautions for possible power outages, including flashlights, new batteries, containers full of drinking water and a supply of non-perishable food for three days at hand. (It was not clear whether the fruitcake was qualified.)
Eversource, which serves about 4.3 million people in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, plans to bring in teams from Canada and Pennsylvania to help, said Lamberty, a company spokesman.
“We’ve been tracking this storm for days,” he said. “We have nothing less than an army out there, a small army, to ensure that we can restore energy and repair any damage.”