That Storm In Middle Of The Nation Was One Of Worst On Record (It Ain't Over, Either)

Winds gusting to 80 mph or more in Colorado during Wednesday's
blizzard caused plenty of damage. Photo by Victor Loya via KDVR

Weather geeks like me everywhere are scraping their jaws off the floor this morning watching that epic storm in the middle of the nation.

The wind, the flooding, the blizzard and the low barometric pressure truly make this a historic storm. The howler is beginning to weaken now, but is still powerful enough to raise more havoc today.

There will be some effects of this in Vermont that we'll want to watch, but it won't be anything like the zone that was really hit. So we'll get into that first. (Some pretty wild videos are at the bottom of this post.)

INCREDIBLE WINDS

The winds are what impressed me the most out of this storm, though there was a lot to leave us impressed.  Storms on the High Plains in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas and elsewhere often feature some big wind gusts, but this was beyond the pale.

Here are some wind gust reports:
96 mph in Colorado Springs and Peterson AFB.
92 mph near Glen Haven, Colorado
89 mph in Hemingford, Nebraska and Cheraw, Colorado
88 mph La Junta, Colorado
80 mph Limon, Colorado, where the wind gusted to at least 67 mph for nine consecutive hours
80 mph Amarillo, Texas

As you can imagine, there was a lot of wind damage.  Plenty of roofs were damaged, Many tractor trailer trucks were blown off highways and countless trees blew down. A 26-car train derailed near Logan, New Mexico, largely because the wind shoved it off the tracks. The air traffic control tower at the Amarillo, Texas airport was evacuated because 80 mph gusts were blowing the siding off the building.

BLIZZARD

The blizzard associated with this giant storm, especially in Colorado, collected a lot of the news headlines.  The storm basically shut down Colorado.

In Denver, 1,350 flights were canceled. Much of Interstates 80, 25, 76 and 70 shut down. (In Nebraska and South Dakota, flooding closed parts of Interstates 29 and 90. More on that in a bit.)

The National Guard had to rescue more than 1,000 people stranded on roads in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, the Weather Channel reported. A Colorado State Patrol corporal was hit and killed by a vehicle whil trying to help a stranded motorist in Weld County, Colorado. More than a dozen vehicles were in a pileup elsewhere in Colorado.

 Blizzard warnings remained in effect this morning from the northeastern corner of Colorado all the way up through the eastern half of North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.

FLOODING

Flooding Wednesday in Yankton, South Dakota. Photo by
Kelly Hertz, Yankton Press & Dakotan

Heavy rain and snow melt really caused some problems, especially in eastern Nebraska, eastern South Dakota and western Iowa.

Yankton, South Dakota reported nearly three inches of rain, which fell on melting snow and frozen ground. Serious flooding erupted there. 

Rivers throughout northeastern Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota and northwestern Iowa are at major flood stage or soon will be.

In many of the flooded areas in this region, rain was changing to snow this morning and winds were picking up, adding to the misery.

MORE BAD WEATHER

On the bright side, no tornadoes were reported with this mega-storm on Wednesday. There were at least a half dozen of them in New Mexico and Texas on Tuesday.

The risk of severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes will actually increase today, even as the parent storm weakens. A broad zone from southern Michigan all the way down to Mississippi and Alabama are at risk of severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes today.

The bigger risk is strong straight line winds, but winds are changing big time in direction and speed with height from Ohio and Indiana south through Kentucky and Tennessee. That's a recipe for at least some tornadoes. That will have to be watched today.  A tornado watch was already up in parts of Tennessee and Mississippi this morning.

HERE IN VERMONT

Once again in our constant winter, a small weather disturbance over produced with snow last evening. That's the second time this has happened in the past three days. Burlington received 3.4 inches of snow, as opposed to forecasts of an inch.

All this just increases slightly the amount of snow on the ground that will need to melt. The big storm in the middle of the country is finally pumping warm air up into our neck of the woods today.  Eventually, high temperatures will get to near 50 degrees this afternoon.

This warm air is fairly humid. Snow melts faster when the air is wet than when the air is dry. Moreover, it will stay above freezing overnight and readings will soar well into the 50s on Friday.

Some showers will  pass through Vermont Friday morning as well.

This isn't a recipe for widespread flooding, but ice jams are a real hazard over the next few days. River ice is thick. Runoff from the melting snow will make rivers rise, dislodging some of the ice. The ice will start moving downstream and in some cases, jam up.

This means a few areas in and near Vermont could easily have some sudden ice jam floods Friday and Saturday. That's why a flood watch is up for the region. 

Beyond this storm, most of the nation, including the hard-hit middle of the nation, and here in Vermont, will get a break from the wild weather. Colorado, and the flood zone in the upper Mississippi Valley will have about a week of mostly dry weather.

We'll need that time to take a deep breath, right?

Some videos:

Here's a clip of the blizzard in Colorado Springs. What strikes me about the video is how loud this blizzard is, given the strong wind gusts:



Next up: One of several tractor trailers being blown off a highway due to the very strong winds:



I go out to Yankton, South Dakota at least once a year to visit relatives. So I recognize most of the landmarks in this video of some substantial flooding in Yankton: