I awoke around 7:00 AM Eastern time today to snow already falling and accumulating on the ground here in North Bergen, New Jersey, three miles west of the Empire State Building in midtown Manhattan.
The temperature here is eleven (11) degrees Fahrenheit with the Wind Chill making it feel like it is -2 degrees.
Because the temperatures have been so cold these past few days, the snow is not melting when it hits the ground; it is accumulating fast.
Snow Plows are already out plowing - but NOT salting because there's no sense while the snow is coming down so heavily. My guess is that we're getting it a little over an inch per hour right now.
Here's what my street looks like looking NORTH from the rooftop Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) Camera:
Below is looking the other way, to the SOUTH from the same PTZ camera:
Almost nobody is out traveling right now, even HERE where there are so many people. Of course Police, Fire, EMS and the plow guys are out, but not even a tiny fraction of the "typical" traffic. It seems everyone knows to stay home.
The Weather Service is now saying the ICE STORM portion of this event WILL arrive here around 5:00 PM.
I am reaching out to my snow plowing customers to see when they want the plowing done. So I will be out in this later today.
POWER OUTAGES
As expected, the ICE Storm component of this weather event has already begun causing power outages over vast areas of the South. As of 8:48 AM EST, the map from PowerOutage.com looks like this:
By state, here is the listing of Customers without electric, by State. Bear in mind that a "customer" can be a single Apartment Complex with hundreds of residents.
UPDATE 12:04 EST --
I just took a ruler outside and measured 6 and 1/4" of snow outside on the ground in my backyard and still snowing very heavily.
Weather radar for this area projects that the ICE portion of the storm will arrive here at about 3:00 PM, will dump ICE for about an hour, then switch to sleet for about four to five more hours.
POWER OUTAGE UPDATE
As of 12:20 PM EST, the states of Alabama and West Virginia are now added to the list of major outage states, and Kentucky has gotten worse, from blue to yellow:
Outages by state List update:
