Tuesday’s storm left more than 28 thousand people without power, but this time of year in Michiana, snow and ice storms happen pretty regularly.
Geoffrey Heidelberger is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Northern Indiana.
“What was kinda unique about yesterday’s storm is we just had a lot of cold air trapped at the surface, whereas slightly above the ground we actually warmed above freezing so when all the precipitation kinda, it started out as snow at the cloud level, melted in the warm layer and then when it made contact with the ground, the ground was still below freezing, it just froze to everything that it touched.”
Once the lake effect snow stops, it’ll only be the wind left, and the aftermath of ice and downed power lines.
“When you have all this freezing rain sticking to power lines and trees, after a while that ice becomes very heavy, starts to pull down on those power lines," Heidelberger said. "And especially the trees, the branches become compromised and then the weight pulls them down.”
I & M say the remaining 4,000 or so customers without power should have it restored by midnight Wednesday.
Heidelberger said another winter storm is expected to roll through on Thursday, and there may be another on Sunday. He says it’s a little early to tell exactly what kind of snow, ice and wind will come with those.