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Winter clipper brings blizzards, tornadoes, wildfires to Midwest

Winter has made a comeback as a fast-moving clipper storm continues to unleash gusty winds and areas of snow from the Midwest to the interior Northeast. 

A broad and erratic patchwork of severe weather rumbled across much of the U.S. on Sunday, dumping heavy snow and making roads impassable in the Upper Midwest while damaging high winds swept across the Plains. Hawaii also continued to be affected by severe flooding.

And portions of the mid-South readied for late-day thunderstorms. Forecasters said the storms will spread eastward and by Monday threaten a large swath of the Eastern U.S., with mid-Atlantic states and Washington, D.C., at greatest risk for high winds and tornadoes.

Successive punches of snow, wind and severe weather are “going to impact the eastern half of the United States,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys. Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted.”

An area from central Wisconsin to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was likely to see over 2 feet of snow, with higher isolated totals on the peninsula, Roys said. Most of the state of Iowa is under a blizzard warning with more than 6 inches of snow. Lower snow accumulations in places like Chicago and Milwaukee will likely create trouble for commuters on Monday.

Over 20 inches of snow had fallen in some portions of southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin as of Sunday afternoon, according to National Weather Service reports. Transportation officials warned of worsening conditions with low visibility and snow-covered roadways.

More than 210,000 utility customers in six Great Lakes states were without electricity as of Sunday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. Some originated on Friday when gusts in the region reached 85 mph.

In Nebraska, about 30 National Guard members were deployed to help combat multiple wildfires across a broad swath of range and grassland, the state’s Emergency Management Agency said. As of Saturday, three of the largest wildfires had damaged well over 900 square miles.

The weather service warned that a line of severe storms with damaging winds would cross much of the Eastern U.S. by late Monday. It was to begin Sunday afternoon and cross the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio valleys.

The storm threat was expected to enter the Appalachians early Monday, then move toward the East Coast, where “severe thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds and several tornadoes” were expected Monday, the service said.

A stretch from parts of South Carolina to Maryland appeared most likely to experience the greatest damaging winds Monday afternoon, the weather service said. That could include Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia, and the nation’s capital. It said an increased — albeit much lower — risk stretched north to New York and south to Florida.


(AP Photo Richard Tsaang-Tattari/Minneapolis Star Tribune via AP)
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