As a cold front settled across Missouri last night, a series of sleet thunderstorms dropped over an inch of ice on Columbia. This morning, the front, which stretched from the Southern Plains to New England, nudged a bit to the north, producing a shallower layer of cold air in our region; the sleet gave way to freezing rain.
Though not accompanied by a powerful storm, the cold front separates dramatically different air masses. At noon, today, it was 71 in Memphis and 38 in St. Louis; Lexington was 60 degrees while Cincinnati sat at 39. It is along and near the freezing zone that the icing is most severe; further north, where the cold air mass is thick, snow is falling while, to the south, the precipitation is rain.
Ice storms pose significant travel problems for humans but are also one of the more deadly weather events for wildlife. Birds and small mammals that usually sift through leaf litter for seeds and insects find that their hunting grounds are glazed over by a thick layer of ice. Those of us who stock backyard feeders will surely notice an increased number and variety of visitors today!
