Snow to hit 2,000-mile stretch from Nevada to New England as weekend travelers head home by Doug Stanglin, USA TODAYUSA TODAY•A severe storm system is turning Black Friday into a wintry white weekend with blizzards and snow expected along much of a 2,000-mile stretch from Nevada to the Upper Midwest and into New England next week.Farther south, severe thunderstorms are possible from the southern Plains to Lower Mississippi River Valley through Saturday.The National Weather Service forecast a large swath of snow totals topping 8 inches for the Northern Rockies eastward into the Northern Plains and for Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, according to the National Weather Service. It said localized snow totals above 18 inches can be expected.The weather threatened to be particularly disruptive on Sunday, when millions of holiday travelers start home. Airlines for America, the airline industry’s trade group, expects 3.1 million passengers during what could be the busiest day ever recorded for American air travel.The group estimated a record of 31.6 million people will travel over a 12-day holiday period. Airlines on Friday said they were so far operating as usual as they monitor the weather. American Airlines issued weather-related waivers Friday for just one airport: Rapid City, South Dakota.
Parts of South Dakota were under a blizzard warning and could see howling winds and as much as 2 feet of snow. The South Dakota Highway Patrol posted a photo on Facebook of a semi-truck that veered from Interstate 90 near Rapid City. “Do not travel if you don’t have to!” the agency wrote.Minneapolis, which was hit by almost 10 inches of snow just before Thanksgiving, was bracing for another onslaught Friday, with 4 to 9 inches expected through Sunday.”Our break from winter weather will be brief with another large storm system impacting the region Friday through the weekend,” says the Twin Cities National Weather Service.Harsh travel conditions are in store for long stretches of Interstates 90 and 94, with the Dakotas, eastern Wyoming and eastern Montana facing especially bleak conditions.”Blizzard conditions can occur in part of this swath. The visibility could be so low at times it may be difficult to determine where the road surface actually is,” says AccuWeather, which forecasts 36 inches of snow for the Black Hills of South Dakota.AccuWeather said travel should be avoided in these areas until the storm leaves and crews have had a chance to clear roads of deep snow by Sunday or Monday.
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As the storm moves east, it is likely to produce snow, sleet and freezing rain by Saturday night in portions of the Northeast, including northern Virginia and Pennsylvania.The first Nor’easter of the season is expected to hit New York on Sunday morning, and may stretch into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service in Albany. The storm is forecast as a mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet in Dutchess County.A nor’easter is defined as a storm that has moderate to heavy precipitation that starts off the East Coast and tracks into eastern New England, said weather service meteorologist Joe Villani.The storm is the result of the massive blizzard hitting the Midwest, he said. To the South, the same low pressure system triggering harsh conditions along the northern tier is likely to produce several inches of snow in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Flagstaff, Arizona, was hit by heavy snow early Friday, with the local NWS office reporting almost 4 inches falling during one hour as the storm moved in.Thunderstorms ahead of the cold front are expected along a southern path from Arizona to East Texas and into Tennessee.The Intermountain West — which stretches from Nevada to western New Mexico — is expected to dry out by Saturday, but another low pressure system approaching from the Pacific will spread more snow and rain over the West Coast late Saturday into Sunday.Black Friday 2019: The best deals on AirPods, TVs, robot vacuums, and more
Contributing: Saba Ali of the Poughkeepsie Journal; The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Black Friday weather: Snow, storms expected from Nevada to New England
Parts of US brace for heavy snow as storm system to bring ‘weather hazards’
A powerful storm system could spur severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the plains region over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, as large portions of the US brace for heavy snow, freezing rain and strong winds.
Related: Thanksgiving weather: storms now threaten post-holiday travel
Dangerous weather has already disrupted holiday travel, producing highway closures in California and flight delays in other areas during one of the year’s busiest transit weeks. Travel may yet be rendered “difficult to impossible” in parts of the south-west, the Weather Channel said.
Airlines expect an all-time high of 31.6 million passengers this week – an increase of 3.7% from 2018, according to CNN.
The main highway running from north to south California, Interstate 5, was closed twice on Thursday due to snow, rain and flash flooding. The road was shut down for more than nine hours, the Los Angeles Times reported.
One couple in their 70s left the San Francisco area on Tuesday morning for Oregon but got stuck for 18 hours, according to the Redding Record Searchlight.
“We were aware before we left there was going to be a snowstorm. We were prepared for that, but not for this,” Jim McDonald told the newspaper. “Not knowing what was going on or how long we were going to be there [was] really distressing.”
Their daughter used Twitter to call out authorities and advise media of the situation.
“The incompetency here is maddening and has put thousands of lives in danger. Thankfully the temps are not below freezing. No serious attempt of communication to people stranded,” she said.
The storm system will move continue moving east “through early next week” and is expected to bring “myriad … weather hazards” the National Weather Service (NWS) warned. “Localized flash flooding” might also strike lower-altitude parts of the south-west.
On Friday, more than a foot of snow was possible in three regions; the Wasatch mountain range on the Utah-Idaho border, the San Juan mountains in south-west Colorado and northern New Mexico, and the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona.
Later in the day, much of the northern Rockies, northern plains, Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula face more than eight inches of snow, the NWS said.
Powerful storm interrupts nation’s busiest travel weekend
Wintry Weather
A powerful storm making its way east from California is causing major disruptions during the year’s busiest travel weekend, as forecasters warned that intensifying snow and ice could thwart millions of people across the country hoping to get home after Thanksgiving.
The storm caused the death of at least one person in South Dakota and shut down highways in the western U.S., stranding drivers in California and prompting authorities in Arizona to plead with travelers to wait out the weather before attempting to travel.
The storm was tracking into the Plains Friday and expected to track east through the weekend — into the Midwest by Saturday and the Northeast on Sunday — pummeling a huge portion of the country with snow, ice or flash flooding.
The National Weather Service said travel could become impossible in some places.
The weather could be particularly disruptive on Sunday, when millions of holiday travelers head home. Airlines for America, the airline industry’s trade group, expects 3.1 million passengers during what could be the busiest day ever recorded for American air travel.
The weather service issued storm warnings Friday for a swath of the country stretching from Montana to Nebraska to Wisconsin, with heavy snow anticipated in parts of Utah, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming.
Gusts up to 90 mph (144.8 kph) were possible in mountains and foothills, and could reach 65 mph (104.6 kph) in the Plains, creating poor visibility.
One hopeful traveler asked the weather service Friday on Twitter whether it would be advisable to drive to Duluth, Minnesota, over the weekend. The agency warned: “If you are in Duluth by tonight, you will likely be stuck there until at least Sunday afternoon due to heavy snow and blizzard conditions.”
Northern Michigan University reopened its residence halls, two days earlier than normal for a Thanksgiving weekend, to give students more options as forecasters predicted a foot or more of snow.
“We want to make people aware of what they could be driving into,” campus police Chief Mike Bath said.
The airline industry group estimated a record 31.6 million people will travel over a 12-day holiday period. Airlines on Friday said they were so far operating as usual as they monitored the weather.
Killer crocodiles: Why are more humans being attacked in East Timor?
Crocodile attacks have jumped more than 20-fold over the past two decades in East Timor, with an average of one person a month falling prey to the ferocious reptiles, though not all are fatal
Lospalos (East Timor) (AFP) – Mario Da Cruz could only watch in horror as a small army of crocodiles killed a child on an East Timor beach — another victim of the tiny nation’s soaring rate of attacks.
Such incidents have jumped more than 20-fold over the past two decades with an average of one person a month falling prey to the ferocious reptiles, though not all are fatal.
„I was walking along the beach and suddenly this group of crocodiles came out of the water so I panicked and ran, but one of them bit my leg,” explains Da Cruz.
„Another attacked a small child who died right then and there,” he says, adding that his home town of Lospalos has seen a jump in crocodiles striking humans.
East Timor sits between Indonesia and Australia, and a large number in the impoverished nation of 1.2 million rely on the waterways for every aspect of life.
People are targeted by crocodiles while they are fishing in small boats, or bathing and collecting water to drink.
„They have had a pretty serious increase in the number of crocodile attacks in the past 10 years,” said Sam Banks, a conservation biologist at Australia’s Charles Darwin University.
Timor’s rate of attacks jumped from fewer than one per year in 1996 to more than a dozen annually in 2014, the most recent data available.
That jump made croc attacks a fatality risk 10 times greater than malaria, according to Sebastian Brackhane at Germany’s University of Freiburg, who has studied East Timor’s crocodile management.
Brackhane and other scientists have looked at what might be behind the jump in a country with a relatively low population of native crocs, including the possibility of humans encroaching on their habitat.
But „we think that an increase in the number of large saltwater crocodiles is the primary factor”, he told AFP.
„The problem is not limited to (East Timor). Other islands, such as the Solomon islands and the Andamans, and several coastal areas of Indonesia show similar patterns of increasing human-crocodile conflict,” Brackhane added.
– Reptile reverence –
