An arctic air blast swept south from Canada, spreading into the northern United States. Meanwhile, residents of the Pacific Northwest braced for possible mudslides and levee failures as floodwaters slowly recede. The concern for Alabama and the southeast are brutally cold temperatures tonight and early this week with lows in the mid-teens in some spots.
Thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest have been evacuated. In the nation's heartland, big cities like Chicago and Minneapolis faced dangerous wind chills. On Saturday, Grand Forks, North Dakota, it felt like minus 36 degrees. The cold air mass pushed south and east, with winter advisories as far as Alabama and Georgia.
Another round of rain and wind is in store for the region as early as late Sunday, forecasters said.
“Bottom line at this point in time is we’re not done despite the sunny conditions that we have across western Washington at this point,” said Reid Wolcott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
“There is yet more still to come in terms of in terms of wind, in terms of rain, in terms in terms of flooding,” he said. “And Washingtonians need to be prepared for additional impacts, additional flooding, tree damage, power outages, etc.”
High winds expected at the end of the weekend and into the first part of week are a concern because the ground is extremely saturated, putting trees at risk of toppling, he said.
In Burlington, a farming community about an hour north of Seattle, the receding floodwaters allowed residents to assess damage and clean up their homes. Friends and relatives helped empty Argentina Dominguez's home, filling trailers with soaked furniture, ripping carpet and mopping muddy floors.
“I know it’s materialistic stuff, but they were our stuff. It’s really hard. But we’re gonna try our best to like get through it all,” Dominguez said. “We’re just trying to get everything off the floor so we can start over.”
In Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle, emergency officials on Saturday led federal, state and local officials on a tour of the devastation.
“It’s obvious that thousands and thousands of Washingtonians and communities all across our state are in the process of digging out, and that’s going to be a challenging process,” Gov. Bob Ferguson said.
“It’s going to be expensive,” he said. “It’s going to be time consuming, and it’s going to be potentially dangerous at times. So I think we’re seeing here in Monroe is what we’re going to be seeing all across the state, and that’s what’s got our focus right now.”
As the Pacific Northwest begins to recover from the deluge, a separate weather system already brought dangerous wind-chill values — the combination of cold air temperatures and wind — to parts of the Upper Midwest. Shortly before noon Saturday, it was minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 24 degrees Celsius) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the wind-chill value meant that it felt like minus 33 F (minus 36 C), the National Weather Service said.
For big cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, the coldest temperatures were expected late Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the Minneapolis area, low temperatures were expected to drop to around minus 15 F, by early Sunday morning. Lows in the Chicago area are projected to be around 1 F by early Sunday, the weather service said.
The Arctic air mass was expected to continue pushing south and east over the weekend, expanding into Southern states by Sunday.
The National Weather Service on Saturday issued cold weather advisories that stretched as far south as the Alabama state capital city of Montgomery, where temperatures late Sunday night into Monday morning were expected to plummet to around 22 F (minus 6 C). To the east, lows in Savannah, Georgia, were expected to drop to around 24 F (minus 4 C) during the same time period.
The cold weather freezing much of the country came as residents in the Pacific Northwest endure more misery after several days of flooding. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate towns in the region as an unusually strong atmospheric river dumped a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain in parts of western and central Washington over several days and swelled rivers, inundating communities and prompting dramatic rescues from rooftops and vehicles.
Many animals were also evacuated as waters raged over horse pastures, barns and farmland. At the peak of evacuations, roughly 170 horses, 140 chickens and 90 goats saved from the floodwaters were being cared for at a county park north of Seattle, said Kara Underwood, division manager of Snohomish County Parks. Most of those animals were still at the park on Saturday, she said.
The record floodwaters slowly receded, but authorities warned that waters will remain high for days, and that there was still danger from potential levee failures or mudslides. There was also the threat of more rain forecast for Sunday. Officials conducted dozens of water rescues as debris and mudslides closed highways and raging torrents washed out roads and
