Ramblings of a Graduate Student

As many of you may already know, I’m currently attempting to take “a snow shot of America” tomorrow.  For those who don’t know what that is, you may be wondering what on earth is “a snow shot of America”.  Simply put, it is a collage of pictures taken of the snow on the ground from every state.  Why tomorrow?  There is a chance that there will be snow on the ground in all 50 states at the same time.  It is unclear if this has ever happened in recorded history.

Above is this morning’s National Snow Analysis; it excludes Alaska and Hawaii, but I’ll get to those states in a minute.  As you can see by looking at the analysis, snow exists in same form or fashion in every one of the contiguous states, with the exception of Louisiana and Florida.  However, a storm moving across the southern United States is poised to change that map drastically by tomorrow.  Local National Weather Service offices in the Deep South are currently forecasting up to an 1″ of snow as far south as the beaches of far western Florida Panhandle.  2-4″ may be possible in areas just north of Pensacola, FL.

Below is the current National Watch/Warning graphic.  The hot pink color is Winter Storm Warnings.  It isn’t very often you see these extended all the way to the Gulf Coast.  Nor do you see it over such a large area this far south.  Here’s to hoping for Florida snow tomorrow!

Now, about Alaska and Hawaii…Alaska has a lot of snow in the state, so I’ve never worried about them.  I was led to believe based on a The Weather Channel tweet that there was snow in the mountains of Hawaii.  This seemed perfectly logical to me, so I didn’t question it too much.  Old webcam images showed snow, and a blizzard in the past few weeks blanketed the mountains.  However, further investigation has led doubt to finding snow on the mountains.  It certainly seems possible that there is snow in a sheltered patch, however, finding the snow will be tough.  I keep reminding myself that “absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence”.  In other words, just because we can’t find it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  Here’s to trying!

In any event, Florida snow is more rare than Hawaiian snow, so getting 49/50 and the 48 contiguous states is still an impressive feat!