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Heavy Rain Continues in Florida; Cold Front Brings Thunderstorms and Showers to Central US

Scattered areas of heavy rain continue to produce isolated flash flooding across the Florida peninsula. Anomalous moisture will combine with a cold front and will bring heavy rain and scattered flash flooding across the Mid-South, Ohio and Tennessee Valleys today and Tuesday. Above average temperatures will continue to be found ahead of the cold front from the Midwest to the Northeast. Read More >

Overview

A strong low pressure system tracked from Wyoming across the state of South Dakota on Friday, January 17th and Saturday, January 18th. Ahead of the low, strong southerly winds combined with falling snow to produce widespread blowing snow and even blizzard conditions for some east of the Missouri River. Freezing drizzle and freezing rain were observed across the area at times as well on Friday. By Friday evening, a brief lull in the winds allowed for improvements to the visibility, but blizzard conditions swiftly returned on surging northwest winds from west to east across the state, beginning roughly at the Missouri River around 8 pm (no or too little blowable snow further west). Ground blizzard conditions then continued through much of the day Saturday across northeastern South Dakota and west central Minnesota. Very cold air moved in with the northwest winds as well. Impacts included road closures such as I-29 across all of eastern SD from 7pm on the 17th through 3pm 18th (portions of I-90 too) as well as other roads for even longer than that in some cases, power outages, and many vehicles in ditches. 

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Surface weather map at 6pm on Friday, January 17th
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