The big winter storm continues to rapidly deepen as it move northeast across the central plains and into the Midwest. Over 30 States have warnings posted along with three provinces at the moment. Winter Storm Warnings are in effect for all of southern and eastern Ontario and southern and Central Quebec. Heavy snow will move from southwest to northeast in the pre dawn hours Wednesday and reach Montreal by mid morning. The snow will fall heavily before mixing with sleet and maybe rain south of the city late in the day. I expect a good 15cm in all regions with 30cm locally. Winds will be fierce gusting 50-90km/h and up over 100km/h in Quebec City. The wind will greatly reduce visibility on area highways and may make travel along the 20 east towards the old capital impossible.
Stats are impressive so far with the storm with wind gusts over 90 mph in the southwest US. Over 250,000 people lost power in Phoenix last night as the cold front associated with the storm roared east. This will be a storm to remember. There is a real threat of power outages in many areas. South of the border in western New York, flooding is even possible along Lake Erie from a storm surge associated with the strong winds.
Here is a quote from the weather discussion out of Quad City, Iowa.
THIS STORM IS IMPRESSIVE. SNOW AMOUNT WISE...IT HAS BEEN ABOUT 10 YEARS SINCE SNOWS OF THIS MAGNITUDE AND EXPANSE HAVE BEEN SEEN. STORM STRENGTH IS ANOTHER MATTER. BASED ON THE CURRENT FORECAST OF A 980MB OR BETTER SURFACE LOW...IT HAS PROBABLY BEEN 20 TO 30 YEARS SINCE A WINTER STORM OF THIS MAGNITUDE HAS BEEN SEEN IN THE AREA.
I will update the situation early tomorrow morning.
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