Storm produces white Christmas, power outages in East

A major storm delivered snow just in the nick of time for a white Christmas for some residents across the eastern United States, while others found themselves waking up in the dark on Friday morning.

The scope of the storm was really large, according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Jake Sojda. Along its journey, it unleashed Arctic air that resulted in widespread freezing cold and snowflakes that reached parts of the Deep South to more springlike air that surged north all the way to New England.

"You had a little bit (or a lot) of everything with the storm: bitter cold, strong winds, severe thunderstorms, heavy snow, flooding rain," Sojda added. "In terms of weather hazards, it really brought a full Christmas stocking."

Strong winds were one of the main concerns across the Northeast, with gusts reaching over 50 mph in spots and contributing to thousands of power outages from Pennsylvania through Maine.

Around 300,000 people across the region woke up in the dark on Christmas morning due to widespread power outages, but that number has been slowly falling behind the storm.

Power outages across the northeastern U.S. as of Friday evening.

Heavy rain was a bigger concern for the interior Northeast, particularly in areas that were buried under feet of snow from the mid-December snowstorm.

"In some areas, 3 inches of rain fell on the equivalent of 3 inches of rain that was locked up in the snowpack," Sojda said. "The net effect of this is like the equivalent of 6 inches of rain falling in just a matter of hours."

Flash flood warnings were issued around Binghamton, New York, on Thursday as a general 1 to 3 inches of rain drenched the snow-covered region. Earlier in the month, Binghamton was blanketed with 40 inches of snow with much of that still on the ground by the time the rain arrived.

The Susquehanna River near Binghamton crested just shy of major flood stage due to the substantial rain and snow melt.

Residents in Louisville, Kentucky, woke up to a white Christmas on Friday morning. (Twitter/@Wx_Dan)

Farther south, residents braced for severe weather on Christmas Eve as thunderstorms erupted amid the rain. The primary concern was damaging wind, but several tornadoes were reported, including a possible tornado near Starke, Florida, that led to two injuries.

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A cold front on the backside of the storm swept across the eastern U.S. on Thursday night, replacing the mild and wet weather with Arctic air and a bit of snow.

Temperatures on Friday morning were 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit lower than they were to start the day on Thursday. This translated to low temperatures in the 20s F as far south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi with even lower AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures.

In contrast, some areas where the cold front had yet to reach on Friday, namely northern New England, experienced the warmest Christmas Day on record. In Caribou, Maine, the high temperature reached 57 F on Friday and shattered the previous record of 48 F, last set in 2014. The average high for the city on Christmas Day is 23 F.

This map shows the change in temperature from Thursday morning, Dec. 24, 2020, to Friday morning, Dec. 25, 2020. (AccuWeather)

The arrival of the cold air brought a Christmas miracle for some who were dreaming of a white Christmas with flakes falling as far south as Tennessee, northern Georgia and northern Alabama.

However, the light snow in the Southern states did not stack up to the accumulations farther north with a general 4 to 8 inches being measured from the mountains of northwestern North Carolina to the shores of Lake Erie.

Pittsburgh reported 3 inches of fresh snow on Friday morning, making it the snowiest Christmas in the city in 85 years, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Pittsburgh tweeted.

"It is officially a White Christmas! Snow depth at our office (the official climate site for Pittsburgh) was 4 inches," the NWS said.

The cold weather will carry over through Saturday with the unusually chilly weather possibly causing a type of reptile to fall to the ground in southern Florida.

"Falling Iguanas are possible," the NWS office in Miami said.

"Iguanas are cold blooded. They slow down or become immobile when temps drop into the 40s," they added. "They may fall from trees, but they are not dead."

An iguana falls from a tree in southern Florida as an unseasonable cold snap enveloped the Sunshine State on Tuesday night into Wednesday. (WPLG / ABC Newsone)

The same phenomenon happened back in January with several people documenting the lizards coming back to life as they warmed up in the morning sun.

Temperatures are expected to rebound across the region during the second half of the weekend, giving people a break from the teeth-chattering cold weather.

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