2023-12-27 23:37:00
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – Cleanup is underway as the sunshine has returned and temperatures are back above freezing. Here’s a recap of the storm that caused the National Weather Service to issue its first ice storm warning in North Dakota since 2016.
First, ice accumulation reports were impressive and significant across south-central and eastern North Dakota.
As a general rule, a quarter inch of ice will glaze roads and seriously impact travel, result in some tree damage, and cause power outages. However, when ice accumulates to one-half inch or more, the major and crippling effects of ice storms occur.
Ice accumulation reports(KFYR)
Other ice accumulation reports include 1″ in Oriska and Verona, 0.9″ in Valley City, 0.75″ in Carrington, 0.6″ in Cooperstown, 0.55″ in Fargo, 0.5″ in Dawson and Thompson, and 0.45″ in Lisbon. 0.75″ of freezing rain accumulated in Selfridge, South Dakota.
As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, over 20,000 customers are still without power in North Dakota. Stutsman County is the hardest hit with regarding 75% of customers tracked without power, according to poweroutage.us. Click here for the latest outage map from Otter Tail Power.
ND power outages by county(poweroutage.us)
Ice storms of this magnitude are fairly rare in North Dakota. This was the first ice storm warning issued by either the NWS office in Bismarck or Grand Forks since the last week of December 2016 (2,554 days before the ice storm warning was issued on Christmas of this year). An ice storm warning is issued when the forecast is calling for 0.5″ or more of ice.
Days since last ice storm warning by NWS office before Dec. 25, 2023(IEM Data Plotter)
Ice storms are much more common in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Over the past 20 years, only five ice storm warnings have been issued by the NWS office in Grand Forks and six by the NWS office in Bismarck. Looking back, the NWS says ice accumulations from this system in eastern North Dakota were the highest received since the late 1990s.
Ice storm warning count by NWS weather forecast office (WFO) over the past 20 years(IEM Data Plotter)
Why did freezing rain occur instead of snow? They key was warm air aloft.
Freezing rain develops when snow from the clouds melts into rain when it passes through a thick, warm layer of air above our heads. This warm layer of air (above 32°) almost reaches down to the ground — if it did, the precipitation type would be just plain rain — but instead, there’s a shallow layer of cold air (below 32°) that allows the rain to freeze on contact with any surface creating an icy mess.
Precipitation types(KFYR)
We received hundreds of photos from viewers at SkySpyPhotos.com! Check them all out and submit your own! Here are just a few of them:
Continuing Coverage:
As a side note, this is now the third Christmas in a row that has been impacted by winter weather in North Dakota. Hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate more with people’s holiday travel plans next year!
Past three Christmases impacted by weather(KFYR)
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