What’s up with this winter? It’s the last week of February. Isn’t the weather supposed to be getting better, not worse?
New England is a lost cause. The upper Midwest is more like Siberia.
Usually, the South offers some hope. Good luck with that.
Most folks like to go there for the winter. Apparently, so does Arctic air.
It was colder last week, but slightly less frigid air is still hanging around and now there’s ice to go with it.
In case you’ve forgotten, Southerners aren’t good with ice.
And we’re not talking just a little bit into the South, ice is possible nearly to the Gulf Coast.
Officially, forecasters call it a wintry mix. That’s code for snow, sleet, rain and freezing rain. Weather advisories are posted from east Texas to the Carolinas.
Here’s what the nation is facing and how it’s coping.
The coming days
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley declared a state of emergency, with ice, sleet, snow and freezing rain expected in various areas from Wednesday morning through Thursday.
In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory said he was prepared to declare a state of emergency, with back-to-back storms expected to bring measurable snowfall to most of the state by the weekend. One person was killed Tuesday when a car apparently slid off a slick road and struck a tree, McCrory’s office said. More than 1,700 collisions were reported since Tuesday morning.
Tennessee has reported 30 weather-related deaths in the past eight days, including car accidents, cases of carbon monoxide poisoning and hypothermia.
In Atlanta, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for Wednesday through Thursday, with snow, rain and subfreezing temperatures in some areas.
In addition, a fresh blast of Arctic air will swirl into the Upper Midwest and Northern Plains, cooling much of the eastern two-thirds of the country later this week. That means the Plains states will see temperatures more than 30 degrees below average Thursday and Friday. The Northeast will awake Thursday and Friday with temperatures 20 to 25 degrees below average.
Slip sliding away
An American Airlines plane skidded off a taxiway at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday night. The pilot was taxiing to the terminal when the plane got stuck. No one was hurt.
Louisiana alligators say what?
Lake Charles, Louisiana, is only 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, yet freezing rain is in the forecast. The gators say this is a croc.
Not quite the Winter Olympics
Even though it’s been on the chilly side for the last week — virtually a lifetime for folks below the Mason-Dixon line — Southerners still have a ways to go before perfecting their winter sports skills.
Blame it on the Snow Queen
Look for a scapegoat when all else (or is that all Elsa?) fails. Police officers in Hanahan, South Carolina, tried to put the impending storm on ice by arresting the Disney princess lookalike.
Sure it was a noble cause, but at what cost? How many little girls will cry themselves to sleep thinking Elsa is behind bars?
Snow profits
While the South struggles with winter, a Boston man has found a way to profit from it. For $89, he’ll express ship 6 pounds of snow to anywhere in the United States. It’s packed in a Styrofoam container so it shouldn’t melt too much. Ship Snow, Yo sold out the first day and with 70 inches of the white stuff on the ground, the company should be able to fill orders for some time to come.
Editorial forecast
You know winter has gone on too long when the New York Times writes an editorial about it. Trying to ease the Big Apple out of its cabin fever, the headline simply reads: “This Winter Has Gotten Old.”
Actually there’s not much hope in the article, except that “New Yorkers are relieved not to live in Boston. Bostonians, snow-buried, may be grateful not to be on the ice planet Hoth, where it’s Boston winter everywhere, all the time.”
Florida gloats
And, if the snow and ice weren’t bad enough, Floridians are acting all superior about their good fortunes. A week ago, parts of the Sunshine state were in the deep freeze. Now they’re getting cocky.
“A ridiculous 84 in Orlando today!” tweets meteorologist Tom Terry. “Soaking in the warm air as another ice/snow storm hammers the South.”
Is hate too strong a word?