February 2013 nor'easter

Nemo was a blizzard that arose on February 7, 2013, and raged in the northeast of the Unite States. Storms (mostly in winter) coming draw from a northeasterly direction from the Atlantic to the land are referred to in the U.S. as a Nor'easter.

The name Nemo he received from the Weather Channel, both the National Weather Service as well as numerous media in the United States but failed to provide the name of the snow storm.

Effects

In advance of expected snow storm airlines painted more than 5,000 flights. In addition, all trains were canceled. For five northeastern states of emergency was proclaimed: Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Iceland. On February 9, 2013 were up to 66 cm of fresh snow. 600,000 homes were without electricity and heating.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on February 8, 2013, that the power of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant had collapsed on Friday; then the reactor was shut down automatically.

Meteorological factors

Several coincident factors contributed or contribute to that " Nemo " is particularly stormy and snowy:

• On 6 February, drew in southwest wind over the Gulf of Mexico ( the subtropical ocean is currently warmer than usual for this time of year ) filled with a lot of moisture. These air masses moved on to the Northeast.
• A wide audience of hundreds of kilometers northwest of future cold air pushed laterally under the warm air. The sea air climbed on (see occlusion); mighty clouds arose.
• A coincidence led to more snowfall: The temperature near the ground in the northeastern United States was only just below zero. Small snowflakes falling towards the ground, then grow more than if the air such as would be minus 10 or minus 15 degrees Celsius cold.
• Nemo is stormier than other Blizzard, because in the north a strong high pressure area and are a strong area of ​​low pressure in the South.

Others

In the fall of 2012, the Hurricane Sandy had caused on the east coast of the USA devastation. This hurricane has made ​​people aware how important can be an appropriate stockpiling ( enough bottled drinking water, gasoline, food, generators / emergency generators, etc.).

Here were hundreds of thousands of households - sometimes for days - without electricity. The reason is that done in the United States large parts of the power supply above ground; these towers can fall in extreme weather conditions or the lines can break loose. In winter, ice can freeze to the lines and make them much more difficult ( in Germany, for example, in Munsterlander snow chaos in December 2005).

Large parts of the infrastructure in the U.S. are under the European standard (medium ) and are considered dilapidated.