Ice Storms, Heavy Snowfall, Tornadoes Threaten Midwest and South - The New York Times

U.S.|Ice Storms, Heavy Snowfall, Tornadoes Threaten Midwest and South

MCKINNEY, Texas — A pounding agelong of rain, upwind and snowfall that chopped a destructive way done California pushed eastbound toward the Midwest and Southern states connected Tuesday, threatening to bring dense rainfall and snowfall to overmuch of the cardinal United States portion threatening parts of the South with tornadoes, forecasters said.

The alleged “multi-hazard storm” was expected to bring freezing rainfall and snowfall to a ample swath of the country, from the cardinal and Northern Plains to the Western Great Lakes, portion besides fueling thunderstorms, tornadoes and periods of hail crossed parts of the South.

The terrible upwind could disrupt question arsenic galore radical instrumentality from the New Year vacation break, and origin wide powerfulness outages.

The storms formed from the aforesaid “atmospheric river” strategy that drowned California implicit the weekend, causing grounds rainfall and flooding successful the bay area, earlier dropping 4 feet of snowfall connected Utah and astir a ft of snowfall successful parts of Arizona. California was inactive recovering from the messiness near implicit New Year’s weekend, adjacent arsenic forecasters warned that another, perchance larger tempest was expected to deed the bluish portion of the authorities again connected Wednesday.

Approximately 35 cardinal radical could beryllium affected by terrible thunderstorms done Tuesday, said Bill Bunting, the main of forecast operations for the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center. Heavy rainfall successful the South could besides origin flash flooding.

People successful hazard areas should “ensure that they person their terrible upwind program successful place,” Mr. Bunting said, “including having aggregate ways to person warnings and besides an identified harmless country successful the home, astatine enactment oregon different locations to question structure should a terrible tempest approach.”

The highest snowfall totals could transcend 12 inches successful the northernmost parts of the Midwest, including Minnesota, according to a National Weather Service online forecast discussion, and snowfall connected Tuesday greeting could scope a complaint of 1 to 3 inches per hour. Freezing rainfall and crystal buildup could origin treacherous driving conditions and powerfulness outages successful Minnesota, the Weather Service said.

Rapid snowfall was besides apt successful different parts of the Northern Plains, peculiarly successful Nebraska and South Dakota, forecasters said. This volition beryllium accompanied by upwind gusts of astir 30 miles per hour, resulting successful “blowing and drifting snow” that is expected to make “difficult-to-impossible travel,” the Weather Service said.

The strategy is expected to nutrient a substance of snow, rain, and freezing rainfall successful Northern New England connected Wednesday, forecasters said.

More than 22,000 customers successful California and astir 12,000 customers successful Louisiana were without energy connected Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates information from utilities crossed the country.

More than 5 cardinal radical successful California, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska were nether wintertime tempest warnings, and astir 900,000 radical were nether crystal tempest warnings arsenic of Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. About 8 cardinal radical were nether tornado watches that were issued for parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

At slightest 5 airlines, including American, Jet Blue and Delta, person announced question waivers for radical readying to alert done Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport oregon the precocious Midwest done midweek. Some airlines offered to waive alteration oregon cancellation fees.

The imaginable formation disruptions travel aft a question of formation cancellations and delays past week due to the fact that of winter weather, unit shortages and, successful the lawsuit of Southwest Airlines, an antithetic operations strategy and exertion problems.

Christine Chung contributed reporting.