Winter Strom Jeffrey (as known by The Weather Channel and Accuweather), also known as the Blizzard of 2021 was a sudden and destructive blizzard that struck portions of the southern United States on January 19-23, 2021.
Meteorological history[]
After a record warm winter in Indiana with temperatures averaging at almost 70 degrees fahrenheit as a high and 45 degrees fahrenheit as a low, a strong low pressure system developed in southeastern Minnesota and early on January 18 moved into Wisconsin and Michigan, producing 3 to 4 inches of rainfall mixing with snow in some areas, the storm then continued to move into the Chicago area by rush hour that morning and produced 6 inches of rainfall in Chicago between 5-7AM local time. As the system continued to move into Indiana it produced a record 2 feet of rainfall in Delaware County in just a hour, producing widespread 2 to 4 feet totals of rain in Indiana, leading to major flash flooding. Before the day was done the Indiana governor had declared a state of emergency for the counties hit the hardest, the storms moved into Kentucky where it was cooler and by 9PM most portions of the system had transitioned from rain into sleet, the storm produced over a foot of snow in Bowling Green between 10PM and midnight local time, before moving into Tennessee and Arkansas producing 40 mph wind gusts, the storm made the full transition into a winter storm around 2AM eastern time on the 19th. It produced over 2 feet of snowfall in Nashville in just a hour (3-4AM local time) before moving into Georgia around 3PM ET that day producing widespread 2-3 feet snowfall totals, this was also when the first flooding death was confirmed in Indiana. The storm produced a peak wind gust of 82.7 miles per hour at Atlanta International Airport at 4:48PM ET, the storm produced over 6 feet of snow in Atlanta alone between 4PM ET and 9PM ET as the storm stalled for two days over Georgia producing much of the same weather for the next 48 hours. The system began to weaken as it moved into Florida on the 22nd and by the 23rd most of the snow had ended and light rain was reported throughout the Everglades. The storm moved offshore that evening and diminished overnight. In the end, 32 of the deaths occurred due to flooding...but 4 were killed due to a pileup in Atlanta.
Aftermath[]
Several states declared states of emergencies after the blizzard, these states were:
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Tennessee
- Alabama
- South Carolina
- North Carolina
- Georgia
- Florida
- Michigan
- Mississippi
In the end the disaster was known as the deadliest blizzard of the 2020's.