A Tropical Storm And Winter Storm At The Same Time Isn’t As Weird As It Sounds

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A​ winter storm will hammer the Northern Plains on the identical time Nicole approaches Florida and the Southeast, in a seemingly odd juxtaposition of climate on reverse ends of the spectrum within the United States.

T​hat might sound bizarre, nevertheless it’s not all that uncommon to have each a tropical cyclone risk and a winter storm within the U.S. on the identical time.

This can occur in two methods: close to the top of hurricane season, when it overlaps with a fall snowstorm, or when hurricane season starts early and a late-spring snowstorm continues to be on the map.

Here are just a few examples from the previous when winter and hurricane seasons clashed.

October 2020

P​rior to Nicole and the Northern Plains duo, this was the latest instance.

In the final week of October 2020, snow fell as far south as Midland, Texas, and a crippling ice storm knocked out energy to tons of of hundreds in Oklahoma, together with the Oklahoma City metro space – all whereas Hurricane Zeta was hammering Louisiana and the Southeast.

I​t was North America’s most expansive October snow cover since 1967, in keeping with the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University.

I​ncredibly, the middle of Hurricane Zeta over southeast Louisiana was solely about 500 miles away from the Oklahoma ice storm.

Mother’s Day Weekend 2015

Mother’s Day weekend 2015 had nearly every little thing however the kitchen sink weatherwise: a winter storm, extreme thunderstorms, flash flooding and a tropical storm making a U.S. landfall.

I​n truth, the map beneath might look eerily near the Nicole-plus-winter-storm state of affairs, minus the magnitude of tornadoes and flooding rain that occurred in May 2015.

Other than a bizarre Groundhog Day 1952 South Florida landfall, Tropical Storm Ana was the earliest tropical or subtropical storm landfall alongside the Atlantic seaboard on report.

Sure sufficient, Winter Storm Venus dumped up to 2 feet of snow on the High Plains.

As a consequence, we had an odd marriage of heavy snow and coastal flooding photographs shared with us on Mother’s Day 2015.

Superstorm Sandy

It’s one factor to have an ongoing snowstorm someplace else when a tropical cyclone is making landfall; It’s fairly one other for the tropical cyclone itself to provoke a snowstorm. In this and plenty of different respects, Superstorm Sandy was odd and distinctive.

Yes, Sandy was “officially” no longer a tropical cyclone because it roared ashore in New Jersey in late October 2012.

However, this former hurricane produced an epic snowstorm in the Appalachians, the place the air was simply chilly sufficient when intercepted by Sandy’s moisture.

Up to three ft of snow fell within the Appalachians of West Virginia and North Carolina. Some roofs collapsed as a result of weight of the moist, heavy snow in components of West Virginia. Two folks died making an attempt to shovel the ft of snow.

Sandy was the one storm through which you possibly can discover a discussion of a snowfall forecast within each National Hurricane Center advisory because it was nearing landfall.

Other Cases

Tropical Storm Tammy (Oct. 5-6, 2005) meandered close to, then tracked into, the Florida Peninsula. As that occurred, the season’s first snow fell in Billings, Montana (10.8 inches), and Minot, North Dakota (4.5 inches).

Hurricane Irene (mid-October 1999) tracked over South Florida, then simply offshore of the Carolinas. Light snow was blanketing components of the Rockies, together with Cheyenne, Wyoming (3.3 inches); Casper, Wyoming (5 inches); and Denver (4.8 inches).

Hurricane Gordon (mid-November 1994) tracked via the Florida Peninsula not as soon as, however twice (although as a tropical storm and despair). As Gordon ramped as much as a hurricane off the North Carolina coast, highly effective low stress cranked up close to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. Bismarck, North Dakota, picked up 6 inches of snow, whereas Grand Forks tallied 3.5 inches.

May 14, 1916: A tropical storm was monitoring up the backbone of the Florida Peninsula as a multiday snowstorm was pounding components of the northern High Plains. Lead, South Dakota, within the northern Black Hills, picked up 41 inches of snow from May 12 to 16, together with 8 inches on the day of the Florida tropical storm landfall.

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