Hot Shots: Blizzards, tornadoes, floods and more

Every Friday, FreightWaves takes a look at the past week or so in social media, highlighting images in trucking, transportation and weather. This week features blizzards in the Plains and Mountain West, snow and tornadoes (on separate days) in the South and flooding in the Pacific Northwest.

Related: Mountain passes closed in Washington due to snowstorms

Blinding blizzards

The first week of 2022 has been rough from the Plains to the Mountain West. Multiple rounds of heavy snow have hit high elevations, totaling more than 4 feet in some places. Wind gusts have exceeded 50 mph, producing plenty of blowing snow and whiteout conditions.

Travel for truckers has been difficult to impossible in the Cascades, the northern Rockies, and the plains of Montana and the Dakotas, with tractor-trailers getting stuck in the snow. Major mountain passes remain closed in western Washington, including Snoqualmie Pass, which is in the middle of a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 90 that could stay shut down through Sunday.

Tornado attack

Several tornadoes hit central and southern Kentucky on New Year’s Day, just a few weeks after a deadly tornado outbreak hit western parts of the state. Mayfield suffered the most damage last month but was spared Jan. 1 when tornadoes struck to the east in places like Hopkinsville and Bowling Green.

Fortunately, the National Weather Service received no reports of injuries or deaths from this most recent wave of tornadoes. Thunderstorms could return to The Bluegrass State late Saturday and Sunday, but they are unlikely to produce tornadoes.

Fierce flooding

While the high elevations of the Cascades have been buried in snow, the same series of storms has been drenching valleys and lowlands to the west. Seattle, Olympia and Hoquiam, Washington, as well as Astoria, Oregon, all set daily rainfall records Thursday with totals ranging from 2 to 5 inches.

Much of the region has received well above normal rainfall already this month. Many of these areas were recently covered with snow, so the rain has been adding to excessive runoff from snow melt, leading to flooding, landslides and road closures. A 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5 in southern Washington was still closed as of Friday afternoon due to flooding. The rain should fade late Friday, but flooding could linger into the weekend.

Southern snow

Snow didn’t only blanket the West this week. Just five days after severe storms and record warmth, snow hit parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia on Thursday, before reaching the Northeast on Friday.

Daily snowfall records were set in Nashville; Lexington, Kentucky; as well as Charleston and Elkins, West Virginia, with totals ranging from 6 to nearly 10 inches.

Related: Small carriers taking big hits from I-95 shutdown

Rain will spread across these areas over the weekend, with some rumbles of thunder possible. Localized flash flooding may occur, but hail, tornadoes and severe wind gusts are unlikely.

Beauty shot

This week’s beauty shot features a stunning sundog spotted 20 miles east of Mankato in southern Minnesota. Sundogs are colored spots of light resulting from refraction (bending) of light through ice crystals. They are located about 22 degrees either left, right or both, from the sun, depending on where the ice crystals are present.

Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Nick Austin.

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Source: https://www.freightwaves.com/news
Editor: Nick Austin, Director of Weather Analytics and Senior Meteorologist