Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico combined with a low pressure system and cold air dropped significant amounts of snow in Louisiana, New Orleans and Texas.
The level of snow dumped by a winter storm that hits the southern United States is wreaking havoc to the disbelief of millions of residents who have never seen anything like it.
Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico combined with a low pressure system and cold air dropped significant amounts of snow: 26.5 centimeters in Lafayette, Louisiana, close to the state record of 33 centimeters set in 1960; 15 centimeters in Baton Rouge, 12.5 centimeters in New Orleans, breaking the record of 6.8 centimeters from 1963, and 6 centimeters in Texas, in the Houston-Galveston area.
The National Weather Service office issued its first blizzard warning. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime event for a lot of these people there,” he said. Tom Kines, AccuWeather meteorologist.
The Gulf Coast of Mexico is the region of the United States most exposed to hurricanes, and snow is a “pretty rare phenomenon,” said Bradley Brokamp, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Houston.
In Houston, where 2 to 4 inches of snow was forecast, only one business was open in a downtown neighborhood.
“I’ve seen all the storms. I’ve been through all the hurricanes. So this has been really fun. I have a 4-year-old daughter at home that I am dying to return to so she can play in the snow,” said Emma Kratky, a waitress at the store.
Meanwhile, 5 to 10 centimeters of snow were forecast for the northwest strip of Florida. The state snowfall record is 10 centimeters set on March 6, 1954.
Meanwhile, cold weather is blanketing much of the continental United States thanks to a disruption of the polar vortex.
The Arctic polar vortex is a band of strong winds over the North Pole that usually keeps extremely cold air at bay, but is now spreading southward, allowing frigid air to flow to lower latitudes.
For example, parts of south-central and southeastern Texas are forecast to experience wind chills as low as -12 degrees these days, according to an extreme cold alert from the National Weather Service.
Source: Ambito
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