Massive Midwest Winter Storm Joins Stella, Targets East Coast

Several cities are cleaning up after a massive winter storm dumped several inches of snow across a wide swath of the Midwest. More than 10 inches of snow fell in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Now, according to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center, a large surface high pressure ridge sinking southward from Canada to the central U.S. will keep January-like temperatures around through at least Wednesday.

NOAA’s GOES-East satellite captured the clouds associated with two low pressure areas coming together on March 13 at 1715 UTC (1:15 p.m. EST). Credits: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

As temperatures dip in the Midwest, a rapidly intensifying nor’easter is bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic coast. Winter storm warnings are in effect from eastern West Virginia to Maine, with blizzard warnings from eastern Pennsylvania to southwest Maine.

More than a foot of snow is expected inland, along with strong and gusty winds. The weather prediction service added that coastal flooding is a possibility.

Mark Wysocki, a meteorologist who specializes in forecasting and weather analysis at the Northeast Regional Climate Center, expects blizzard conditions to arrive Tuesday morning, and says this may not be the last big storm of the season.

“It’s not unusual for us to have winter storms of this magnitude during March. We can still expect these types of storms through mid-April. With the current storm pattern, we may not be done with storms like this yet,” said Wysocki.