00:00Joining me now is AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
00:04This is certainly in some locations one for the record books.
00:07It sure is. This is one that's going to be remembered as one of the top storms,
00:12top winter storms of the decade.
00:14Certainly a blockbuster blizzard here as AccuWeather snow experts were talking about in advance
00:19to help people to best prepare.
00:21And when you take a look at this map and see snow totals of two to three feet
00:26from south Jersey toward portions of Long Island up into eastern Connecticut,
00:32Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, this is a big storm.
00:35And of course, people in the northeastern part of the United States deal with nor'easters quite often.
00:40But the amount of snow, how quickly the snow is falling,
00:44and the widespread blizzard conditions and significant impacts.
00:49We're talking about the I-95 corridor, a major population center and commerce corridor
00:56for being shut down effectively here for multiple days.
01:01Today, obviously, and then also there's going to be lasting impacts for several days to come.
01:05This is going to be a storm to remember.
01:07Yeah, I mean, there's ripple effects.
01:09Even if you're somewhere that didn't get the snow,
01:10you could still be dealing with impacts travel-related, especially with the airports.
01:15Now, I made kind of a mention there is criteria for a blizzard,
01:18so a lot of locations, John, did meet that.
01:21But others, it might as well have been a blizzard.
01:23Yeah, it's more of a technicality in some areas.
01:26But there is an official definition for a blizzard,
01:29and you have to have snow, all of these components.
01:32You have to have snow or blowing snow.
01:34You have to have less than a quarter mile visibility,
01:37which is very restricted visibility.
01:40Sustained winds of 35 miles per hour or frequent gusts of 35 miles per hour or more.
01:46And you need all of this to last for three or more consecutive hours.
01:50This is difficult to do in terms of being able to have those conditions persist.
01:57These are extremely harsh and dangerous conditions.
01:59But that's what happened at many of the official reporting sites,
02:04many of the airports along the I-95 corridor.
02:07And to your point, in the locations that didn't meet this officially,
02:11it might as well have been because it was very close.
02:14Take Philadelphia, for example, where it perhaps didn't do this.
02:18It did this for two hours consecutively and not the third.
02:21Didn't matter.
02:21This is a blockbuster blizzard.
02:24Sure is.
02:25Yeah, either way, a lot of snow, very strong wind, and a lot of issues.
02:29The wind, it wasn't just visibility that, you know, there were problems with.
02:33No, we highlighted in advance our significant concerns about power outages.
02:37And look at the numbers here.
02:39In some cases, nearly 100,000 people without power across parts of Massachusetts.
02:45Notice, though, where the most power outages are here.
02:49Right along the coastal areas.
02:50That's where the combination of the gusty winds in excess of 55 miles per hour,
02:56even higher in some locations,
02:57and that heavy, wet snow that was weighing down trees and power lines,
03:01that was a problem.
03:03And that's going to result in power outages that are going to last for days
03:06in some of these areas.
03:08You're seeing some of the views here in Beach Haven, New Jersey,
03:12some of the coastal areas that we saw, all of those impacts.
03:15Now, John, we've been talking about,
03:18there are going to be long-lasting effects from this storm,
03:21especially related to the economy.
03:24There will.
03:24Also, in AccuWeather breaking news, AccuWeather experts this afternoon
03:28have issued our preliminary estimate for total damage and economic loss
03:32from the blockbuster blizzard.
03:34That's $34 to $38 billion in total damage and economic loss.
03:40What's driving that?
03:41Well, we had a major commerce corridor and population center
03:46effectively shut down, as mentioned,
03:49including many major airports that were shut down.
03:51And that doesn't just cause problems if you have, for example,
03:54flights out of Newark or Providence or other locations in the I-95 corridor.
04:02These are big hubs, big airport hubs.
04:04And when you have crews getting out of position, planes getting out of position,
04:08and passengers not where they need to be,
04:10well, then you have cascading impacts around the country.
04:13And we're going to be dealing with that for several days.
04:16It's going to take several days for airlines and the air system to recover
04:20and get back to some sense of normalcy here.
04:23That's one of the major impacts in our total damage and economic loss.
04:27And, of course, businesses, schools, and roads closed.
04:29We've had a lot of that.
04:31And the businesses, some of them, especially the small businesses,
04:34may not have products that they need.
04:36Supply chains for businesses have been substantially impacted.
04:39And we've talked about the significant power outages
04:41that are going to last for days in some of the hardest-hit areas.
04:44So it's another significant billion-dollar disaster here
04:49in terms of our latest winter storm.
04:51Yeah, unfortunately, it has just been a very impactful winter,
04:56lasting long into February here.
04:58All right, AccuAther Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter,
05:01thanks for joining me and adding that context.
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