Weather

Winter storm marches through the Ohio Valley

On the Plains, cold, mostly dry weather prevails. Wednesday morning’s low temperatures plunged below -10° as far south as the central High Plains, where only a shallow snow cover exists to help insulate drought-stressed winter wheat. Early Wednesday, sub-zero readings were widespread on the northern and central Plains, while temperatures generally ranged from 0 to 20° on the southern Plains.

Across the Corn Belt, a major winter storm is underway in the Ohio Valley, where frozen precipitation (snow, sleet, and freezing rain) is occurring. Blizzard Warnings are in effect Wednesday from near the mouth of the Ohio River into western Ohio. Meanwhile, cold, dry weather covers the upper Midwest, where the ground remains snow-covered. Current snow depths include 6 inches in Des Moines, Iowa, and 4 inches in Omaha, Nebraska.

In the South, cold, windy weather is spreading into the Gulf Coast States in the wake of a Christmas Day severe weather outbreak that resulted in at least two dozen tornadoes from eastern Texas to southern Alabama. Farther north, snow is ending across the Mid-South, where travel remains difficult and Little Rock, Arkansas, is reporting a current snow depth of 9 inches. Elsewhere, showers and locally severe thunderstorms are sweeping across the southern Atlantic States.

In the West, scattered rain and snow showers are most numerous across California, the Intermountain West, and the Northwest. Pre-holiday storms provided a dramatic boost to high-elevation snow packs in parts of the West; for example, the average water content of the Sierra Nevada snow pack climbed to 12 inches (140 percent of normal) by December 24, up from 6 inches a week earlier.