Flash freeze wreaks havoc on county
More than 1,200 Butler County residents lost power Friday, and dozens of motorists were involved in motor vehicle crashes throughout the chilly, snowy day.
While the “flash freeze” that began Friday morning took Western Pennsylvania, literally, by storm, Lee Hendricks, a meteorologist with National Weather Service Pittsburgh, said it was only the beginning.
“This storm system, the center is still in eastern Canada, and the cold front is gradually rotating through,” he said. “On Christmas Eve, cloudy with a slight chance of snow showers and the low windchill around 16 below zero. Christmas Day, cloudy, cold, high around 16, winds 15 to 20, gusting to 35. Windchill as 13 below zero.”
“It's all uphill from there.”
Hendricks said temperatures Friday will hover in the low single digits, and the winds and gusts of up to 45 mph will make temperatures feel like they are 26 degrees below zero.
“What causes this is we had a cold front pass; a very intense, low pressure system,” Hendricks said. “It's so cold right now that really the chance of snow we're getting, it's going to be so dry we're not going to get a good deal of it.”
The “flash freeze” left a sheet of snow and some ice covering many roads throughout Butler County. A dispatcher with Butler County Emergency Services said the center has received 16 calls for vehicle crashes since midnight, and several for trees and wires down, which have mainly been reported on side streets.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation closed the northbound lane of Interstate 79 between Exit 99 and Exit 105, which leads to Slippery Rock, due to a crash at around 1 p.m. The road was tentatively scheduled to reopen around 3 p.m.
Additionally, severe weather is listed as the cause for more than 2,100 power outages for West Penn Power customers, with a majority of the outages, 1,229, being in Center Township as of 11:45 a.m. Friday, Dec. 23. By 4 p.m., power had been restored to around 600 of those customers.
More than 200 Butler County customers of Central Electric Cooperative are also without power, with a majority of 173 being in Washington Township.
The West Penn Power outage center does not yet list an expected time for power to be restored for customers.
The Butler Transit Authority announced that it would not run bus service on Friday or Saturday because of the weather.
According to Hendricks, the temperatures Saturday will be record lows for Dec. 24. The low temperature forecast for the day will be 27 degrees below zero, taking windchill into account. The record low for the day was set in 1983, which had a low temperature of 13 degrees.
“This is not normal,” Hendricks said. “We're never going to make it up to double digits (Saturday).”
Hendricks said the probability of having a white Christmas is high. Following the holiday, temperatures will go back up, at least for the time being.
“By Thursday, we'll be at mostly cloudy with highs in 40s,” Hendricks said.
