Guess What? It's Going To Snow In New England Again

From Twitter, this guy in Scituate,
Mass. doesn't need a ladder
to remove snow from his roof.
The snowbanks are so tall he
just stands on them to get the job done.  

New England can never catch a break.

On Monday, a storm departing the Middle Atlantic States brushed past southern New England. In a fe towns in southeastern Massachusetts, a little more snow fell than expected, including 5.5 inches in Plymouth and 5.4 in Marshfield, Mass.

Luckily, Boston itself only got 0.6 inches of new snow yesterday. Any little bit hurts at this point though.

MORE SNOW IN NEW ENGLAND

Yesterday, I mentioned something called a Norlun trough that is expected to extend back from the departing storm westward toward New England later today.

You can click on this sentence to get an excruciating detailed explanation of the Norlun trough. 

That's still expected to happen, so a few more inches of snow could fall on eastern Massachusetts later tonight and Thursday. Maybe one to four inches, which is just another pain in the neck for that region. Even a little more than the forecasted amount could fall if things set up right.

Worse, this Norlun trough is likely to combine with a weather disturbance accompanying another shot of arctic air to spin up a new storm system in the Gulf of Maine.

If this happens, as expected, much of Maine, including the eastern part of the state that is hopelessly buried under many feet of snow already, could get another six to ten inches of snow out of this. It isn't certain yet, but a winter storm watch is up for pretty much all of Maine and the northeastern two thirds of New Hampshire.

Hard hit New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, Canada ought to watch this one, too. That region is also buried in deep snow and the new system Thursday could drop several inches of snow, says Environment Canada.

The snow from this is expected to extend into the northeastern corner of Vermont late tonight and Thursday, where this is a winter weather advisory for the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for an expected three to six inches of snow.

Elsewhere in northern Vermont, there could easily be two to four inches of new snow out of this.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NATION

The weather isn't expected to be a picnic in the eastern United States outside of New England, either.

A winter weather advisory is up for a big area today, including Tennessee, Kentucky, parts of the Ohio River Valley and the Carolinas.

From @Conventures on Twitter, a massive
pile of snow cleared from the streets
grows at a "snow farm" in Boston. Note for
scale the size of the heavy equipment
on the pile. 

This is precisely the area that was hit by a very nasty snow and ice storm earlier this week, so this is just piling on. Yeah, only one to four inches of new snow is expected across this region today, but that's a fair amount for them.

Worse, Arctic air is pouring down from Canada, so wind chill advisories and warnings are up for a huge area from the northern Plains through the Midwest, and on into most of the eastern United States, all the way into Georgia and Florida

Record low temperatures are likely to fall in much of this area. Florida is on the alert for hard freezes.

This could end up being the strongest, most frigid cold snap in parts of the Ohio Valley, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states since the mid 1990s, says the National Weather Service. 

(Up in the Northeast, this cold wave will be about on par with the one that came through Sunday and Monday.)

BACK TO NEW ENGLAND

Up in fed-up New England, we won't be done with the misery of snow and cold during this work week. Another storm system is due Sunday.

There's a lot of uncertainty with this one. Precipitation is expected region wide, but snow might mix with or change to sleet, freezing rain or rain, depending on how much warm-ish air is briefly carried north by the storm system. We're also not sure how heavy the precipitation is going to be.

But still, it's ominious. If a lot of snow falls on eastern New England, that's just much more trouble. If it's a cold rain, it will soak into the powdery snow, putting additional weight and stress on roofs,  adding to the long and growing list of structural failures in New England.

The snow is driving people crazy. It has reduced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to urging people in Boston to stop hurling themselves out of windows and second story windows into snowbanks, apparently because what else can you do when you're that snowed in.

"It's a foolish thing to do and you could kill yourself," Walsh told the Boston Herald. "This isn't Loon Mountain.......the last thing we want to do is respond to an emergency call where somebody jumped out of the window because they thought it was a funny thing to do."

Well, with that much snow in Boston, it might not be New Hampshire's Loon Mountain, but you can forgive Bostonians from being truly loony from all that snow.

Even Jimmy Fallon has been joking about it, highlighting, like everyone else, Jim Cantore's happy reaction to thundersnow, and newscasters in Boston who quote fifth graders who call the called-off school the "best effing week of my life.

Just for fun, here are some videos from the snow zone taken during the big snow blitz last weekend.

From Face the Wind, we have this video of lovely Plymouth, Mass. this past Sunday:




TVN Weather, a storm chasing group and organization that usually plies the Great Plains in the spring and summer capturing dramatic videos of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, felt compelled to go to Cape Cod during the blizzard last weekend, because after all, that was a severe storm, right?

Here's a sample of what they got:



The following video was taken before the February 15 blizzard, but after Monkton, New Brunswick, Canada was socked by mulitple snowstorms in the two weeks leading up to February 4.

It shows what it was like to walk along the streets and sidewalks of Moncton:

While New England Freezes, Most Of The Rest Of The World Bakes

NASA's assessment of global temperatures in
Janaury show much warmer than normal temperatures
in most of the Arctic and Siberia. Eastern
 Canada in particular was chilly. Add caption

Much of New England is likely to have its coldest February on record, this after a January that was colder than average.

But today, we get confirmation that the rest of the world continues to bake.

The first flurry of monthly reports on the Earth's climate came out today, and we've learned that on a global basis, January was either the warmest or second warmest first month of the year on record.

NASA says January, 2015 on a global basis was the second warmest on record, while the Japan Meteorological Agency says January was the warmest on record.

Each of those two agencies have slightly different methods of taking the Earth's temperature, so the results vary a bit. But the actual temperatures the two agencies measured are extremely close to one another, which is pretty much always the case.

The closely watched National Climate Data Center January assessment of the world's climate is due out later this week.

While New England has been extremely cold in
February, the Intermountain West has been extremely warm.  

It's obviously too soon to tell how warm February is going to be compared to past years, because the month isn't over yet.

But New Englanders shouldn't think this February negates global warming. Even in the hottest months on a global basis a few pockets of the Earth are cooler than normal.

New England will very likely end up being the spot on the Earth that will end the month the coolest on the planet, relative to normal.

Other parts of the planet have so far been extremely warm so far in February compared to normal.

In fact, just in the United States, while parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts have so far been running as much as 16 degrees colder than normal in February, a large chunk of the Intermountain West has been about 16 degrees warmer than normal.

In the last 30 days, cities and towns across the nation tied or set 3,742 daily record high temperatures, says the National Climate Data Center. In that same period, only 222 daily record lows were set, mostly in the Northeast.

Although the number of daily record lows will climb in the next few days and the record highs probably won't change too much, the highs are still handily exceeding the low, at least in the United States.

Skating Through The South And Blasting Through Winter

Ice storm damage in Helena, Arkansas. By
Stephanie Arnold via KATV.  

Another big winter storm is ending for most of the places it blasted yesterday, and the eastern part of the nation is settling in for more Arctic air.

This is one of those winter that, in general, wasn't so bad at the beginning but really built up to a big crescendo toward the end.

The big problem with yesterday's winter storm was the freezing rain and ice accumulations stretching from Arkansas to North Carolina.

Widespread power failures are still going in Arkansas, Tennessee, northeastern parts of Georgia and sections of North Carolina. (Plus there's probably a few nearby areas I skipped.)

NBC is reporting this morning at least 330,000 homes and businesses across the South have no power because heavy ice accumulations brought down trees, branches and power lines.

It's cold where there's no power, too. Arctic air punched back into the region behind the storm. For instance, it was 14 degrees this morning in Nashville, where about a half inch of ice paralyzed the region.

You start to get power failures during freezing rain if the ice accumulates to about a quarter inch thick. In Tennessee, ice was as much as three quarters of an inch thick, reports the Weather Channel. Many areas reported at least a half inch of ice.

Car crashes, were of course common. Some of them were because people were driving too fast for the conditions.  The city of Memphis, Tennessee reported at least 73 car crashes in about 16 hours, the Commercial Appeal newspaper said. 

WAVY-TV in Virginia had a camera set up on the side of the road in Hampton, Virginia, when this happened:



Notice the SUV stopped just inches from the camera (and the guy standing by filming.)

No serious injuries were reported in this crash.

North of the ice zone, it was heavy snow. Coleman, Kentucky picked up 18 inches of snow, and widespread totals of six to twelve inches were reported from Missouri to Virginia.

As expected, the outer edges of the storm were clipping southeastern New England as of Tuesday morning.

Luckily, after six feet of snow in the past month, this won't amount to much, but it won't help. An inch or two could fall in the Boston area today, and Cape Cod and the Islands expect two to four inches.

Ice storm damage in Memphis, Tennessee.
Photo by Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal

Although it will remain very cold in New England for at least the next week, it might not snow all that much more in the next few days. There will be nuisance snows on several days through the weekend, though.

However, with (cross your fingers!) no HUGE dumps of snow into Saturday, municipalities in New England, with help from outside agencies like the Vermont National Guard, can do some power snow clearing.

You know, get tons of bucket loaders out there to dig the snow out of the streets and store it
in "snow dumps" fields.. or even disposing of it in the ocean, a move that is only legal in extreme cases, due to the pollution contained in the snow from the streets. I think this does qualify as an extreme case.

Speaking of extremes, the cold is locked in through much of the week. The National Weather Service in Indianapolis said the town of Seymour, Indiana got down to 13 below this morning. So did Burlington, Vermont. Of course 13 below in Vermont is not as rare as it is in Indiana but it's still damn cold.

Plus, the overnight low got down to minus 30 in Saranac Lake, New York, minus 26 in Whitefield, New Hampshire and 24 below in Morrisville, Vermont and Sherbrooke, Quebec.

This comes after dozens of cities and towns reported record lows. Erie, Pennsylvania reached 12 below, its all time record low for any date. Watertown, New York reached 34 below on Monday.

Another surge of Arctic air will blast into the Midwest and East Wednesday and Thursday. There's a chance Nashville could get below zero. If that happens, it would be the latest in the winter that has happened on record.

I'm watching another possible snowstorm in the Northeast on Sunday or Monday, but I have no details. Forecasting computer models are all over the place with this, so there's nothing I can hang my hat on yet. We'll see.

The weather pattern is stuck pretty much for the rest of the month. There are still some very uncertain signs the weather pattern could change in early March, but I'm not 100 percent sure it will yet, and it could always change into a pattern that brings more snow and cold to places that don't need it.

Stay tuned.

Huge Mess Of Ice And Snow From Arkansas To New Jersey

Car far off the road in icy Memphis, Tenn. this morning.
Photo via Twitter, @local24rodney

Believe it or not, the weather is arguably nicer in snowbound Boston, Massachusetts this morning than it is in places like Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee.

Oh, sure it was ugly in Boston this morning. At 5 a.m., for instance, the temperature was 1 below zero, winds were from the northwest gusting to 38 mph and the wind chill was 25 below.

Plus, Massachusetts is so mired in feet of snow I don't know how they'll ever dig out.

However, the next winter storm is hitting places like Little Rock and Memphis. In those two cities, freezing rain had been falling for hours as dawn broke.  Travel is next to impossible there, so good luck getting to work today if you live in that general area.

Really, just work from home. Assuming you have electricity. Enough freezing rain is going to fall in parts of Arkansas and Tennessee today that trees, branches and power lines will snap. You'll hear lots of news today about the power failures and crashes there.

It's all spreading east, too, so places like northern Mississippi and Alabama,  the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, and big towns like Raleigh, North Carolina are due late today, tonight and tomorrow for freezing rain, scary traveling conditions and power failures.

North of that line of freezing rain, the Ohio Valley is getting hammered by snow. It's already snowing at a pretty good clip there, and that should, if anything, pick up in intensity during the day.

Some areas of Kentucky could receive up to 15 inches of snow, and six to 12 inches will be common. In places that approach 15 inches of snow, those are near record deep accumulations for a snowstorm.

Winter storm warnings extend all the way to Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland and southern New Jersey, where four to ten inches of snow is expected, mostly tonight.

Most of the big snows have steered around the Washington DC area this winter, so this will be a switch for them. This will likely be the first real good snowstorm they've had all winter.

The storm causing this is not super strong, certainly not like the nor'easter that slammed eastern New England the Canadian Maritime provinces over the weekend.

But this new system, traveling east, eventually through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, then off the Carolina coast, has plenty of Gulf of Mexico moisture to work with, and plenty of Arctic air to the north to feed into the system.

Hence, the huge mess.

In places that get the heavy snow and ice, it's going to stick around for awhile, as another blast of Arctic air slumps its way into the eastern half of the nation.

The storm still looks as if it will give a glancing blow to New England instead of a full-throttle dumping. Things could change, but the best guess from the National Weather Service in Massachusetts is two to four inches, mostly south of a Hartford,  Connecticut to Boston line.

Given the bad luck New England has had, though, there is one more complication. A finger of lower air pressure poking into eastern New England from the Atlantic could linger as the storm passes Wednesday.

The setup is called a Norlun trough. It is very hard to forecast much in advance if it will set up, and exactly where. These troughs don't cause heavy snow over a vast area, but can over a more localized zone, say, 40 or 50 miles wide.

If a Norlun trough were to set up somewhere in Massachusetts on Wednesday, that would just be crushing. Literally even, as there's so much snow on roofs that some are caving in.

We just have to hope our old buddy Norlun stays away from New England this week.

By the way, the cold, and possibly outbreaks of snow, will linger through the end of the month in the Northeast.

New England/Canada Blizzard Ending Just In Time For New Storm

Really. I just can't keep up with this.

As of late afternoon Sunday, another epic blizzard was winding down in New England and was still hammering the Maritime provinces of Canada.  

Cartoonis Gary Varvel is with the Indianapolis Star, but
he surely captured the mood of New Englanders
with this cartoon today. 

At the same time, another extremely nasty winter storm is taking shape in the south centerl United States and will cause a LOT of havoc over the next few days.

The only bright side to that is the new storm looks at this point to be aiming for just a glancing blow in New England. At least that's what it looks like now.

I'll get into the new storm in a second here, but we should do a few updates on the New England/Canada storm.

The statistics are amazing. Boston has had 95.7 inches of snow this winter, it's third snowiest on record, and there's plenty of time for more snow to break the all time record.

According to Eric Fisher, a meteorologist with CBS Boston,  it appears as if Boston has had more snow in the past three weeks than all but two or three entire seasons in the past 124 winters around Massachusetts.

Boston has also had more snow in the past three weeks than Chicago has ever had in an entire winter.

With this storm, the pace of building collapses have increased in eastern Massachusetts. I guess this one was the straw that broke the camel's back.

From @liatsvoice on Twitter, a Boston neighborhood
late Sunday afternoon.  

Among the damage reports received at the National Weather Service office in Taunton, Massachusetts  were a 24 unit apartment building with a partial roof collapse in Newburyport; a 20 by 100 foot section of a brick warehouse in Hingham that gave way; a partial roof collapse of a four family home in Quincy, and a horse barn in Stoughton.

In each case, people and animals were evacuated and there have been no major injuries. So far, anyway.

Eastern Maine got pounded again, too. Eastport, Maine and nearby towns had received around two feet of new snow as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

Up in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada, things weren't going so great either.

In Prince Edward Island, Environment Canada warned about storm surge flooding and battering sea ice being pushed inland by the storm's winds and waves.

Environment Canada also warned of up to two feet of new snow in New Brunswick.

Via Twitter from Sheila Trainor, blizzard conditions Sunday
in the ironically named Summerside,
Prince Edward Island, Canada. Add caption

CBC News reports some major highways are closed, numerous flights are cancelled and power failures are occuring in the winter storm zone in southeastern Canada.

The cold is another HUGE factor in the Northeast. This current blast, if you combine the low temperatures with the strong winds, is the worst of the winter.

Wind chills were forecast to be anywhere between 30 and 50 below tonight in northern New York and across Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

The cold has been persistent. In addition to breaking records for the most snow in a month in eastern New England, cities and towns in the entire region will most likely have one of their coldest Februaries on record, if not THE coldest February.

Take Burlington, Vermont, for example. Please.

Up there, in the northwestern part of New England, the snow hasn't been too bad. As of yesterday, the midpoint of the month, there had been 17.9 inches of snow in Burlington's February. That's already above the normal of about 16.5 inches for the entire month, but it's not super extreme.

The cold is, though. The mean temperature in Burlington so far this month is 7.4 degrees or more than 12 degrees colder than normal.

With the frigid forecast for the rest of the month, chances are very high that Burlington will have one of its top three coldest Februaries on record. (We thought we might catch a break since last March was the coldest on record, but I guess not.)

Today was the 21st day in a row that stayed below freezing in Burlington. This winter won't have the longest stretch of continuous subfreezing weather, or at least I hope not. Burlington would have to stay below freezing until around St. Patrick's Day, and that would be bad. But Vermont will definitely be in the Top 10 list of longest subfreezing streaks.

No change in the overall pattern is expected until at least March 5 or so, possibly later.

THE NEXT STORM

Winter storm warnings are now in place for a vast area of the middle Mississippi River valley, most of the Ohio River Valley and parts of the southeastern United States. This is really an unusually large area of the country to face a winter storm warning all from one storm.

The storm system responsible for this winter storm isn't super strong, like the nor'easter now departing New England. But it has a lot of moisture to work with. And a lot of cold air to the north of the storm.

That combination means a widespread area of heavy winter precipitation. This one is continuing a trend I've seen this winter in which even places that haven't had a super terrible winter, like New England, are getting snowstorms that are near record deep.

This happened from Chicago to Detroit in one storm earlier this month. It looks like parts of Kentucky and surrounding areas could have one of their deepest snowstorms on record.

The storm is getting going now and will continue to spread east through Monday and Tuesday.

There could be up to 15 inches of snow in parts of Kentucky by the time this is finished. Widespread totals of 5 to 12 inches are forecast from Missouri to North Carolina.

Freezing rain and sleet are a big concern in the southern portion of the vast winter storm warning area.

Some areas from near Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee could get up to a half inch of ice, which would bring down trees and power lines.

Quite a lot of possibly damaging ice could hit parts of the Carolinas and far northern Georgia as the storm moves east into the area Monday night.

The Washington DC area, which so far this winter has largely managed to avoid big snowstorms this winter, could get more than five inches out of this one.

As I said, the thinking, or at least the hope, is this storm will end up scooting out to sea far enough south and east of New England so that the region avoids another immense dump.

The overall weather pattern remains the same, however, so very cold temperatures and frequent chances of snows are going to continue through the end of the month.

If you want a glimmer of hope, some of the long range computer models suggest a relaxation of the extreme weather pattern starting somewhere between about March 3 to March 8.

That's highly uncertain, and we've had moments before when it seemed like this weather pattern was going to break, only to have our hopes dashed.

Ridiculous Storm Continues In New England Sunday Morning

Satellite view of the giant nor'easter smothering
eastern New England Sunday morning.  

I just don't know what else to say beyond what I've said about the incredible winter siege slamming eastern New England.  

As expected, another blizzard is pounding the area. It was still snowing as of 9:30 a.m. in eastern New England, and will more or less continue the rest of the day.

As of 10 a.m., some ridiculous Massachusetts snow totals have started coming in, once again. 22 inches in Acushnet, 21 inches in Milton. 20 inches in Salisbury, Ipswich and New Bedford.

These would be noteworthy accumulations for one storm, but remember, this is another in a series of storms.

As dawn broke, Boston had received 89.7 inches of snow this winter. If it had stopped snowing at 7 a.m. this morning there and not snowed again the rest of the season, that would be Boston's third snowiest winter on record.

Of course heavy snow continued there. Heavy snow was still reported in Boston as of 9 a.m. The snowiest winter on record is 107.6 inches in 1996-96. And the rate Boston is going, they'll have no trouble getting the 18 inches of snow needed to break that record.

There is simply nowhere to put the accumulated snow if you want to clear streets, sidewalks and parking lots.  Plus, it's still snowing, and the wind is blowing things around. This is just amazing.

There was thundersnow last night and this morning in parts of Massachusetts, a clear sign that this is exploding into a monster storm.

Weather Channel icon Jim Cantore's favorite weather is thundersnow. It excites him. So we bring you this video of a live shot he was on in Massachusetts. More on the storm below the clip:



As of 9 a.m., the center of the mammoth storm was still a little southeast of New England, heading toward the Gulf of Maine. It was still bombing out, meaning the already strong storm was getting stronger.

As a result, winds were picking up along the coast. Numerous gusts over 50 mph have been reported, a few over 60 mph, and gusts to hurricane force are possible as the storm really gets going as it passes Cape Cod.

Buildings and roofs started collapsing under the snow a week ago in Massachusetts as the accumulations piled up. More failures have happened already today. The National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass said part of a 40 by 100 section of a building collapsed in Canton, Mass.; and there was a partial roof collapse of a building, which then caught fire in Foxboro, Mass., very close to Gillette stadium.

Coastal flooding is also causing damage, though it is not quite as bad as during the late January blizzard. Still, several coastal streets and roads were closed by the flooding, including southbound lanes of Morrissey Boulevard in Boston.

A six foot tall fence in Natick, Mass. this morning.
From Bill Domrose, @DomroseB, via Twitter.  

Light snow on the outer edges of the storm is already withdrawing from northern New York and northwest Vermont, and the snow will slowly taper off from west to east across New England today, tonight and tomorrow.

The region, and the entire Northeast, will then just be caught in unrelenting frigid weather and strong winds today and much of tomorrow.

Eastern Maine and the Canadian Maritime provinces are  still in in for the long haul. They're still expected a total of 10 to 18 inches of new snow amid wind gusts to 60 mph in eastern Maine, New Brunswick and parts of Nova Scotia.

The storm is so massive and so strong, that strong gusty winds will continue through Monday. Combined with the pure frigid Arctic air over the Northeast, wind chills will continue to be extremely dangerous through Monday.

How dangerous? Wind chills as low as 40 or 45  below are expected in parts of New York and Vermont, as a for instance.

Since the storm is so huge, the strong, damaging winds extend over a broad area. Last night, winds gusted to 68 mph in Germantown, Maryland, 66 mph in Gaithersburg, Maryland and at Wintergreen, Virginia.

Amid the frigid weather, with temperatures in the teens and wind chills below zero, several thousand people are without power in the Mid-Atlantic states due to wind damage.

ANOTHER STORM

After this monster of a blizzard blows by, there's another storm on the horizon. It's uncertain yet, but there are some signs Boston and environs could get lucky and receive only a glancing blow from the midweek storm. But who knows? It could hook back. But a storm that only drops a couple inches of snow would represent a nice break, given how this winter has been going.

Before the storm gets to the Northeast, however, it's ready to cause a TON of trouble in the south central and southeastern parts of the nation.

Snow cover reaches the level of a roof of a
one story building in Gloucester, Mass.  

A broad area from central Oklahoma and Kansas, through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, and on into northern Georgia and parts of the western Carolinas are under a variety of winter storm warnings, watches and advisories.

Much of that area can expect six to 10 inches of snow between now and Tuesday. Many areas could get an ice storm, especially near or south of Little Rock, Arkansas and maybe near Memphis, Tennessee.

Freezing rain could fall on Atlanta, Georgia Monday or Monday night, and we all know how things can get screwed up in Atlanta by winter weather.

The weather pattern that has brought New England this extreme winter weather is locked in until early March at least, quite possibly beyond.

The only change to the pattern that started the past couple of days and will continue through early March is for cold waves to also extend to the middle of the country, and some of the snows could land further south than they have been lately.

Beyond Wednesday, I have no idea if New England will get any more big snowstorms. They don't want any, I know. But it's hard to forecast specific storms this far out. What's more certain is it's going to stay cold in the Northeast through the end of February and possibly beyond, so not much of the deep, deep snow is going to disappear anytime soon.

Northeast Blizzard Totally Impressive Even Before It Formed

In a visible satellite photo of the developing storm taken this
afternoon, you can see the thin enhanced line of
intense snow squall sfrom western New York, northwestern
Pennsylvania, central Ohio then curving back into central Indiana. 

Saturday evening, right on schedule, the big nor'easter that's expected to bring that huge blizzard to eastern New England was definitely showing signs of forming.

Barometric pressure was falling fast off the Mid-Atlantic coast, an area of precipitation was blossoming in and around Maryland, and snow, the result of warm-ish air overriding cold air, was breaking out in southeastern New England.

What I was really impressed by was the disturbance that dropped down from the North Pole, across Ontario, western New York and was heading eastward across Pennsylvania as of 6 p.m. Saturday.

I knew this disturbance would be extremely energetic. (Note that I kept saying so in forecasts leading up to this.)

But boy, I've never seen anything quite like this. It's a weird storm, to be sure.

During the late morning, a snow squall line formed over Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. It strengthened and swept east, and was in central New York and Pennyslvania this evening. During the night, it will probably get absorbed into the developing storm, but wow, what a squall line!

On radar and in satellite images, the squall line looked somewhat like you'd see in a springtime severe weather outbreak.

In fact, the snow squall line contained thunder and lightning, strong winds, and near zero visibility in heavy snow.

Check out the time lapse video from Hollisdaysburg,  Pennsylvania at the bottom of this post. It gets really, really dark, and there's some ragged, ominous clouds just before it hits, like a bad thunderstorm is coming.

These squalls dropped visibility on highways and turned them into skating rinks instantaneously. The Columbia (Ohio) Dispatch reports several big pileups, at least two deaths and multiple injuries today.

The main squall line has passed Ohio, but subsequent squalls are passing through the state, causing more havoc.

The Indianapolis Star reported several pileups in that state as well. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the northwest part of that state due to heavy snow squalls, high winds and low visibility.

The forecast for the blizzard on Sunday remains largely unchanged. It looks like the storm might go a bit more east than previous forecasts, so snowfall in eastern New England might be just a tiny bit less than earlier forecasts.

But it's going to be a formidable storm, and every bit as dangerous as the forecasts have been calling for.

Let's be careful out there.