An estimated 95 million Americans will travel for the holidays, and Mother Nature is already snarling those plans. A big storm system currently on the move is expected to cause issues from Texas to New England. TODAY's Dylan Dreyer reports.
By Daniella Silva, NBC News
From ice and snow in the Midwest and New England to thunderstorms and perhaps even tornadoes in the South, a swath of the nation from Texas to Maine braced for hazardous weather through one of the busiest travel and holiday shopping weekends of the year.
It could complicate travel for the 95 million people that travel agency AAA estimates will fly or drive for the holiday.
“We’ve had pretty poor weather conditions two weeks in a row leading up to Christmas,” said Christopher Dolce, a meteorologist at the Weather Channel. “There’s been a considerable amount of winter storm activity all the way back to the days before Thanksgiving and a lot of travel woes continuing into December.”
On the southern end of the storm, The Weather Channel forecast a strengthening low-pressure system with unseasonably warm air to bring significant rain, thunderstorms and possible tornadoes for parts of the Mississippi Valley on Saturday.
Thunderstorms and high winds left at least 84,784 people in Arkansas without power on Saturday afternoon, according to utility company outage reports.
Thirteen states were under flood watches and warnings, with severe weather expected from east Texas through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and southern Ohio. The main tornado threat will be in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, Dolce said.
While those states do see severe weather in winter, he added, December tornadoes are uncommon. The National Weather Service in Nashville reported that the last December tornado in Tennessee was in 2000.
Further north, ice had already developed Saturday in parts of the Plains and Midwest. It was expected to turn to snow and freezing rain on Saturday, with snowfall expected to affect travel from northwest Texas and Oklahoma to parts of Kansas and northern Michigan on Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
Freezing rain made for dangerously icy conditions on Oklahoma roads. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol blamed the weather for one death early Saturday morning, according to NBC affiliate KJRH in Tulsa.
Chicago was on the fringe of the storm, Dolce said, but there could still be travel headaches there Sunday.
Meanwhile, parts of the Northeast could reach record highs for December, with a surge of warm air bringing temperatures into the upper 60s and low 70s as far north as New York and Philadelphia on Sunday.
“It’s goodbye, white Christmas, in parts of Southern New England,” Dolce said.
Warm weather and rain even closed the Empire State Plaza ice rink in Albany, N.Y., this weekend.
But the higher temperatures were set to spark severe winter weather farther north, as the warm, moist air will move over the top of subfreezing air near the surface of the earth in New England.
That clash of weather masses is expected to create an ice storm in the region beginning Saturday evening, with significant risk of ice accumulation from parts of upstate New York and New Hampshire to Vermont and Maine. In addition to travel woes, Dolce said the ice could reach over half an inch in some areas, creating the risk of power outages.
Dolce said there were improvements on the way for those traveling Monday and into Christmas Eve. While there were “pockets of trouble” for holiday travelers into Christmas Day, Dolce said most of the weather woes will be gone once this storm subsides.
This story was originally published on Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:14 AM EST
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