Īt 3:38 AM, on January 28, the winter storm warning was expanded northward, to include all except the northern exurbs. Many believed that the storm would not occur until midday and planned accordingly. Not a bad idea to stay off the roads if you're able!". A source of some of the confusion was a tweet issued by the NWSFO in Peachtree City at 3:08 pm and repeated on the local news that read: "Winter precip will make travel risky across GA midday Tues into Weds. Some took this to be a "lowering" from a storm watch, although this was not the case, since there is no separate precursor to an advisory (which indicates less than 2 inches (5 cm) in the case of snow), other than the same watch used as a precursor to a potential warning. On January 27, warnings were issued for the south metro area, while the central region (from east to west) was placed under a winter weather advisory. For north and central Georgia, NWSFO Peachtree City first issued a winter storm watch well in advance of the storm, which included most of metro Atlanta except for the northernmost counties.
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The National Weather Service (NWS) had forecast the storm well in advance, as did meteorologists for local media and for national TV networks. Earlier forecasts had the heaviest accumulations going through southern Alabama and middle Georgia, causing the Alabama DOT to send most of its snow removal to points around Montgomery and southward, and the Georgia DOT to bring its own resources down from north Georgia, whose mountain counties are the most likely of any in the deep South to get winter weather. The Outer Banks of North Carolina received significant snows, as did the Tidewater region of southeastern Virginia.įurther north, significant snows fell. Further north, coastal South Carolina got some of the freezing rain, closing bridges around Charleston. On the Atlantic coast, Jacksonville was completely spared, and in coastal Georgia the ice storm warning was lowered, leaving Savannah with only some sleet. Other states were able to move resources down from further up-state, however freeways and other state routes are generally the only roads which are treated by state governments. Bridges to barrier islands were also closed due to ice, and the almost total lack of deicing equipment and chemicals both for the Florida DOT and for local governments in all affected states, which had to rely entirely on sand spreaders retrofitted to dump trucks. Much of Interstate 10 was closed to east and west traffic, as well as others to and from inland areas. Preparations and impact Gulf Coast įreezing rain and sleet were recorded in coastal cities including Houston in southeast Texas, New Orleans in southeast Louisiana, Mobile in the Alabama panhandle, and Pensacola and Tallahassee in the Florida panhandle.
On January 31, the weakened winter storm was absorbed into the circulation of another more powerful extratropical cyclone over the North Atlantic, while situated off the coast of South Carolina. ĭespite the unusually far southward incursion of cold air, the storm took a somewhat more northward track than initially expected, much to the relief of some areas that were spared, and much to the surprise of others further north that had not paid attention to later changes in weather forecasts and corresponding winter storm warnings.
The cold wave traveled much further south than normal, such that when the precipitation arrived from the Gulf Coast winter storm, freezing temperatures were occurring all of the way down to the coast. The breakdown of the normal polar vortex around the North Pole allowed an outbreak of frigid Arctic air to penetrate well into the South. As with most major winter storms in the American South, a low-pressure system formed near the western Gulf of Mexico, in this case, over Mexico on January 27, and eventually moved eastward.
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