The first major cold snap of the season on Tuesday plunged parts of the southeastern United States into record low temperatures, triggering freeze warnings across Alabama, Florida and Georgia, shocking 18 million people. Meanwhile, a cold front blew in, blanketing areas along the eastern Great Lakes with several inches of snow.
The hit of arctic air, which affected the eastern two-thirds of the country, moved east and far southeast from the northern plains, which were battered by gusty winds and snow over the weekend. For much of the Southeast on Tuesday, that meant temperatures that had reached the 70s and 80s in recent days suddenly transitioned into winter temperatures.
Some daily records were “completely shattered,” including a low temperature of 28 degrees Fahrenheit at the Jacksonville, Fla., airport Tuesday morning, meteorologist Scott Kliebauer said. This broke the previous record low temperature of 35 degrees, set in 1977.
The southeastern United States is expected to experience several days of colder-than-normal conditions before warming up later in the week.
Florida faces ‘Iguana Fall Advisory’
Kleebauer, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, said iguanas begin to “freeze” and fall from trees when temperatures drop below 40 degrees. These temperatures were also widespread in northern Florida on Tuesday.
“Because of their reptilian nature, iguanas go into this kind of survival mode and their systems basically shut down,” he says. “They’re not used to temperatures like that. They only encounter those temperatures a few, if any, times a year.”
Posts of stunned reptiles trickled onto social media as Floridians faced unfamiliar weather.
“In many cases, fall creeps in, and then winter creeps in,” Kliebauer said. “This was even more difficult. It had been warm for a long time and then all of a sudden the shot was cold and it was a shock to the system.”
Visitors to an Orlando theme park may have thought they were returning to their warm vacation destination in the north as temperatures approached freezing. As far south as Fort Lauderdale and Miami, early morning temperatures dipped into the low 40s. Temperatures were not expected to reach 70 degrees on Tuesday, even if it was sunny.
Florida agriculture officials said they hadn’t heard of any problems from the cold front, but another cold night held their breath until Wednesday morning.
Dozens of accidents occurred across West Virginia in the pre-dawn hours of snow and ice Tuesday, before the sun came out and road conditions improved.
More than 14 inches of snow fell on Monday and Tuesday, prompting the White Grass Ski Touring Center in Canaan Valley in the northern mountains to open for cross-country skiing.
Lake effect brings first heavy snow of several inches.
The cold air flowing over the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes created the perfect conditions for heavy snowfall in some communities along the Great Lakes and further inland downwind in Pennsylvania and New York. Lake-effect snowfall is expected to increase by several inches on Tuesday, and forecasters said a new storm system will bring more snow on Wednesday.
Barbara Bucci is the village clerk and librarian for the town of Oubry, located in the heart of eastern Michigan’s Thumb region. The village was blanketed in snow Monday, with nearly 8 inches accumulated by Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
“It just kept going down,” Butch said.
In addition to the snow, there was intense cold and strong winds, with wind chills dropping below freezing. The weather is not normally seen this early in the season. Temperatures are expected to climb into the 50s by the end of the week.
“It’s going to be a sloppy, mushy mess in the end,” Butch joked. “It’s just part of life where we live.”
Areas downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario also woke up under winter weather warnings Tuesday, with the National Weather Service predicting 2 to 6 inches of snow could fall in some New York cities, including Niagara Falls, Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Jamestown. For many people, this is the first few inches of snow of the season, which typically adds up to about 100 inches or more by spring.
High water depths of about 6 to 9 inches were expected for the day in the traditionally snowy Tug Hill Plateau between Lake Ontario and the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.
High winds and heavy snow created dangerous driving conditions, including squall warnings along Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania late Monday.
Further north, parts of Vermont received up to 8 inches of snow, disrupting the commute Monday night.
Flash flood risk in California
On the West Coast, an atmospheric river headed toward California is expected to bring heavy rain and mountain snow later this week. A long plume of tropical moisture that has formed over the Pacific Ocean will begin soaking the San Francisco Bay Area starting Wednesday and move south shortly thereafter. More than a foot of snow is expected to fall in parts of the Sierra Nevada.
About 2 million Californians were at risk of heavy rain on Wednesday, Kleebauer said, but the advisory expanded to more than 21 million people by Thursday as the storm moved south. Thursday’s total includes the city of Los Angeles, but surrounding terrain areas to the north and northwest of the city are more likely to be affected.
Forecasters also warned that these areas, as well as low-lying areas, are susceptible to runoff, landslides and debris flows because heavy rains are not absorbed well by wildfire-burned soil.
Fingerhut writes for The Associated Press. Associated Press writer Margery A. Beck in Omaha; Frida Frisaro of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; John LaVey of Charleston, West Virginia; Holly Reimer of Concord, New Hampshire; Mike Schneider of Orlando; Carolyn Thompson of Buffalo, New York; and Christopher Webber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
