NATIONAL WEATHER SUMMARY
FEBRUARY 2001
1st-3rd…A gusty snowstorm over the Pacific Northwest pushed inland Friday. Snow and rain fell in New York and New England. The Western storm brought occasionally heavy snow to the Idaho mountains. In the central United States, snow showers over the Dakotas and northeastern Nebraska pushed into Minnesota and Iowa. Bitter temperatures remained in the northern Plains and pushed into the Ohio Valley. Intense cold remained centered over Minnesota, Iowa and the northern Great Lakes. Scattered snow showers in the Northeast produced accumulations of up to 4 inches in parts of the Appalachians. Snow also fell in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The Southeast coast and Gulf Coast reported showers and a few thunderstorms while the central and southern Plains had partly cloudy to fair conditions.
4th-10th…A low pressure system cruising up the Atlantic coast Monday produced snows of up to a foot or more in portions of southern New England and into eastern Pennsylvania and New York State. Behind the front skies became partly cloudy to clear in the mid-Atlantic states and Southeast. Scattered snow fell in Michigan and upper portions of the Ohio Valley, spreading south through the Appalachians. In Wisconsin and the lower reaches along the Ohio, skies were partly cloudy with some light snow. Skies were mostly cloudy in the northern Plains, with scattered snow reported in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Iowa had a mix of freezing rain and snow in the northwest. High pressure dominated the central and southern Plains with breezy conditions ahead of an approaching front carrying showers toward Missouri. There was rain west of the Cascades, with light snow in the mountains and eastern Washington, Idaho, western Montana and Wyoming. Snow fell in the mountains of Utah and Colorado. Strong winds braced the front range of the Rockies. It was mainly dry and fair in the southern Rockies, Great Basin, the Southwest and California, where low clouds and valley fog burned off early.
A complex storm system dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow over much of the central and western states Wednesday. Up to 6 inches of snow fell from Illinois to Idaho and as far south as Nevada. Parts of Iowa and South Dakota reported sleet and freezing rain as well, while California experienced clouds and rain. In the Northeast, a weak disturbance brought clouds to eastern and northern New York and throughout upper New England. The rest of the Northeast was dry and partly cloudy to fair. Similar conditions affected the upper Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. Clouds also overtook the southern Plains, particularly over eastern Texas and Oklahoma, and increasing through Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri. Although gulf moisture moving north ahead of the developing system caused gray skies, the region remained dry. The Southwest and Pacific Coast were quiet. Skies from Washington to central California also were partly cloudy to clear. Blustery winds blew near 30 mph from California to Oklahoma and higher in Arizona and New Mexico.
Up to a foot of snow and wind gusts of 40 mph on Friday blocked roads and caused power outages in Iowa and Nebraska, where temperatures in some places dipped to 16 below zero. Meanwhile, moisture continued to feed into a strong storm system moving across the Mississippi Valley, with a curtain of heavy rain and flash flooding stretching from Louisiana to Michigan. Illinois and Arkansas, reporting 60 mph winds, were among the worst affected. The Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic remained dry though clouds ahead of the system increased. The Southeast was partly cloudy to fair, with only isolated showers near the Keys. In Maine and northern New Hampshire, the storm system produced snow, mixed with some sleet and freezing rain farther inland. Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kansas also had snow. High pressure in the West kept areas from the Dakotas to west Texas dry. Fair conditions ruled Arizona, New Mexico and southern California. A system that brought clouds and isolated thunderstorms to the Pacific Northwest were to move south. The area also saw light snow.
11th-17th…Chilly rain soaked the Southeast early Monday, while sleet and freezing rain iced the mid-Atlantic. An intense Pacific low dumped rain from San Francisco to Los Angeles and heavy snows from the Sierra Nevadas to the coastal ranges. Clouds increased in the Northeast, Ohio Valley and southern Pennsylvania, with flurries in southern Michigan and western New York. Light snow also fell over eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin and the northern Great Lakes. High pressure brought clear to partly cloudy skies to areas of the Dakotas, Central Plains, Pacific Northwest, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, Desert Southwest and the Four Corners region. Isolated snow showers were recorded over higher elevations of western Montana, Idaho, western Wyoming, Nevada and northern Utah.
Bands of snow and rain stretched across the nation from the Southwest to the Northeast on Wednesday. A cold front, associated with a storm system moving across the lower Great Lakes, stretched from the southern Plains across the Mississippi Valley and up the Ohio Valley. Rain fell along that front from north-central Texas through Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri, and continued along the Ohio Valley through southern sections of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and large parts of Kentucky. Showers also stretched across northern sections of Indiana and Ohio into Pennsylvania and New York state, as well as parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and parts of southern New England. Most of the precipitation was light but some locally heavy rain, with amounts up to a half-inch, fell from Oklahoma to Ohio. The front brought plummeting temperature, with the reading at Oklahoma City dropping from 61 to 45 degrees in just one hour. Farther north, in colder air, light snow fell across sections of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and from upstate New York across northern New England. To the southwest, rain was scattered over southern Arizona and parts of New Mexico, with pockets of snow in northern sections of those states and parts of Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Elsewhere, a few light showers formed along the coast of extreme southern California and western Washington state Seattle's worst storm in 5 years brought from 8 to 13 inches of snow to the city's outlying areas Friday, leaving 600,000 electricity customers without power. Elsewhere, heavy rain, hail, frequent lightning and high winds battered the Deep South, downing trees in Louisiana and flooding parts of Tennessee. Heavy rain also hit eastern Texas, while colder air caused freezing rain in southern Missouri, Arkansas and northeast Texas. The Northern Plains had scattered flurries and bitter cold, with the wind chill at Devil's Lake, N.D., reaching 50°F below zero. In the Pacific Northwest, cloudy skies dominated. Washington's Puget Sound area was blanketed by a foot of snow, and slick roads in Seattle caused two traffic pileups that involved more than a dozen vehicles each. Gusting winds up to 20 mph also created near-blizzard conditions. Rain and sleet fell in the mid-Atlantic and New England states. In Florida, temperatures reached the 80s with partly cloudy skies.
18th-24th…Rain fell across large areas of California on Monday as a new Pacific storm moved inland. Bands of rain moved inland into California, scattering showers and isolated thunderstorms from the Los Angeles area to the southern edge of Oregon. The rain turned to snow in the Sierra Nevada. Ahead of that area of wet, stormy weather, weak disturbances produced scattered, light rain showers and mountain snow showers across parts of northern Nevada, southern Idaho, northern Utah, Wyoming, and northern Colorado. A few isolated, light snow showers were scattered from the northern Rockies onto the Plains in parts of Montana and the Dakotas. An area of low pressure near the northern Great Lakes spread clouds from Minnesota to New England. Scattered snow showers developed across northern Michigan, parts of Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Wider areas of light snow developed during the afternoon across New York state and snow also moved into extreme northern sections of the New England states.
Bitter cold dipped deep into central and eastern parts of the nation Wednesday, while rain and snow fell in the Pacific Northwest. As the cold front moved east, the Northeast and Ohio Valley were windy with steadily falling temperatures. Winds gusted to 40 mph in places, and light snow fell in the eastern Great Lakes and northern New England. The South was cloudy with scattered showers, but plummeting temperatures caused freezing rain and sleet in Missouri. The northern Plains and Midwest were partly cloudy and bitterly cold. Several areas across northern Minnesota had midday high temperatures below zero. A large storm system dropped as much as a half-inch of rain from Washington into the Bay Area of California.
A fast-moving snowstorm moved up the East Coast on Thursday as thunderstorms and rain hit parts of the South. Wet and slushy snow moved east over the Great Lakes and through the northern mid-Atlantic states, with up to 6 inches fell across parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Snow also fell in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and across the Ohio Valley. In the South, rain and thunderstorms were reported in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. In the West, scattered snow fell in Montana and Idaho and farther west in California, Oregon and Nevada. California's Siskiyou County reported 13 inches of snow over a 12-hour period. Heavy rain also fell in the Sacramento, CA, area and across San Francisco Bay. Mostly cloudy skies were reported in the Southwest, the Plains and southern Rockies.
A large weather system brought rain and snow to much of the Plains and Midwest on Friday, as high pressure brought clear and mild conditions back to the Northeast. Showers and thunderstorms hit Texas and the southern Plains and moved into parts of the Midwest. Light snow fell in the northern Plains and upper Midwest, with patchy freezing drizzle making roads slick in the Dakotas. The weather was worse over the Rockies, with some areas of Utah and Colorado received up to a foot of snow. Rain dampened Southern California with heavy showers, hail and gusty winds. Snow was reported in California's coastal mountains.
25th-28th…A line of strong thunderstorms moved inland from the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, and showers were scattered across the Southwest. The thunderstorms and scattered showers formed near the coasts of Texas and Louisiana and moved northward during the day, and by late afternoon they stretched from east Texas through central Louisiana into southern Mississippi. A large area of low pressure produced a wide area of light precipitation in the West and Southwest, with showers over the southern two-thirds of California and the southern tip of Nevada. During the afternoon, showers also were scattered eastward through Arizona into parts of New Mexico. A few light showers continued eastward through Texas Panhandle into parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Along the northern side of the area of rain, occasional snow showers were scattered over northern Arizona, southern Utah and western Colorado. Snow also fell at higher elevations of central and southern California, with 5 to 10 inches reported by afternoon at some areas above 6,000 feet. Elsewhere, snow was scattered from Minnesota and Iowa through Wisconsin into northern Michigan. Snow also fell from northern New York state through Vermont and New Hampshire into Maine, but dwindled during the afternoon. Some parts of northern Maine collected 4 to 8 inches of snow.