Monitoring Tsunami Impacts Across the Pacific; Air Quality Concerns; Dangerous Heat; Critical Fire Weather for the West

Tsunami impacts continue for portions of the Pacific basin. Wildfire smoke causes unhealthy air in Midwest to Great Lakes. Heat dome spans Mississippi Valley to Mid-Atlantic with excessive heat warnings and advisories. Critical fire weather in Great Basin to Pacific Northwest (dry thunderstorms). Cold front spawns severe storms/heavy rain in Central U.S. today, shifts to East Coast Thursday. Read More >

January 20-21, 2012
Winter Storm

Low pressure tracked northeast through the Tennessee Valley late Friday evening, January 20th, 2012, combining with a low pressure system over the Great Lakes to produce precipitation across the Ohio Valley. Across West Central Ohio and northern portions of Central Ohio, where there was a deep Arctic air mass in place, precipitation mainly fell as snow, with several inches observed. Closer to the Interstate 70 corridor and farther south, warm air aloft worked northward from the southern storm, causing the precipitation to transition to primarily sleet and freezing rain. Numerous reports of 1/4 inch of icing were received across Southwest Ohio and Southeast Indiana, including the Cincinnati metro area. Temperatures in Northern Kentucky and South Central Ohio were the warmest, which combined with light precipitation to only produce a thin glaze of ice. Precipitation pulled out of the region by the early morning hours of January 21st.