let's bring in nicole mitchell for today's environmental impact. it sounds like this heat is leading to a real concern for wildfires in california, i would think. >> that will be a problem later in the season. what we've had all season, places like california, instead of the winter being the wet season, it's been hot and dry once again. now, unfortunately some of that heat that we saw bottled up on the west coast has been spreading to the midwest, that's where part of our danger is today. as we take a look at that, we are seeing the broad picture on the environment. midsection of the country westward very dry. i want to mention if you're seeing a couple flakes fly by in the northeast. >> no! >> you are not crazy. there has been some snow and then this rain ended that, causing delays in atlanta this morning. but as we get closer, so here's the temperatures. you can see however northward now that warm air has bubbled. 10-20 degrees above average all through the midwest. as we look at somewhere like omaha, for example 76 degrees, normal high temperatu

nicole mitchell is watching the storm. a lot of people affected. >> yes. you talked about the plane, about six inches of snow. in kentucky, some said they were stranded for 12-14 hours. some parts got up to 2 feet of snow in kentucky. okay. you see the early frames and the broader area. most of this has moved offshore, rain on the coastline. as this clears out. drier skies, and a break behind this, which i know a lot of people are excited about. the sthoij behind this, this is part of what caused this to be a snow storm or turn from a rain storm into a snow storm. the cold air came in. switching to snow in many places, and eventually that occurs. as we put this into motion the trough of cold air subsides. we have a warm up by the time we get from tomorrow into the day after. it will be nice for us. most of the day tomorrow will be well below average. a lot of the eastern half of the country, 10-20 degrees below where we should be. >> it's cold out there. >> for the second time in three weeks, a freight train carrying crude oil derailed exploding into a fir

. -- nicole mitchell is here. seems like history is repeating itself. >> there's so much cold air south we are seeing the southern winter storms freezing rain dallas little rock. more on the rain side of this. as the colder air intruded i'll freeze the last are frame and you see how widespread the blues, more likely to be snow and ice are. as it moves along, a widespread band, a lot of warm air in the south side as the cold air improves that is what is transitioning. 64 that was an overnight temperature. the high fell through the course of day. atlanta will do the same tomorrow. so a lot of these temperatures dropping not even getting a breeze in tomorrow. most of the precipitation is converting to snow or freezing rain. in the meantime we'll look at high totals specially if you look in the corner of this. 10 inches some of the big cities like washington d.c. baltimore, chances of 4-8 inches even new york on the northern cusp of this. >> over and over again, miami 85 degrees. >> so-called super-bug has been detect

. >> let's get more from nicole mitchell. nicole?> storms on this side of the world, unlike the united states we don't have planes that fly. we do that in the u.s. but here you estimate based on things like wind and water. and you can see all of the water that pushed through. estimating at least a 2-foot rise. that's one of the concerns is that the wind estimated on satellite, and they look at that interpretation, how round the eye is, how symmetrical the storm is. recorded winds at 170 miles per hour, and as i said that dramatic water situation. even the good water supplies that you would normally have they get mixed in debris fecal matter and things like that. so that's why you have a food problem. you can see that similar metry. as it moved further south it got into colder water and lost some of its tropical characteristics, so it still caused problem for new zealand as it made the shift to the north, but it lost his tropical core so it is what we call extra tropical but still caused power outages. see this little tropical storm h

those numbers are likely to rise and nicole mitchell has more. >> these are equivalent of a categorywinds up to 185 miles. they don't do hurricane reconnaissance but a lot of water damage as well rising at least two feet above the local side levels and we have seen the dramatic video of all of the wind being reported. so you can see all of the dramatic damage from this. this is what it looked like over the weekend at its peak. you can see that well-formed eye. the circular feeder bands coming in. and that's how they use the interpretation to classify how strong it is. so you can see it starting to diminish as it heads south. and as it headed towards new zealand it moved into colder water, and became what we call extra tropical but still impacted new zealand with flooding areas. still had winds to 90 miles per hour. so caused wide-spread power outages and things of that nature. i just want to mention. like us it's the spring and fall that we have the hurricane season, here the systems are reverse verse. >> thank you very much. >>> the price of oil has dropped to a six-year low and gas

. >> let's bring in meteorologist nicole mitchell.can you tell us about the science of erosion? >> there are a number of problems that cause erosion. for somewhere like washaway beach it's got the most erosion on the west coast. a numbered of factors -- a number of factors come together. large powerful waves a lot of water coming in and they chew away at the coastline. then you add to it some of the massive storms that come in on the coastline and that causes the fastest erosion for these areas, sometimes on a big storm they can lose two or three houses aat a go. this is a estuary. this oches out to the sea and is -- opposite out to the sea and is enclosed. the tides come in and as the water comes in from the river it turns that water around moves more sand out than is coming in and causes it to break away to the north to get that water out to the sea. we go back in time and you can see how much more land there was. that water was having to take a curve in and out. water likes a straight line so it was losing a lot mortar rain earlier

meteorologist nicole mitchell is here with more on this late blast of weather. >> i walk into the room these days. >> more good news. >> got it. well here you don't even need me to explain this. you can take one look at the radar and see how widespread this is right now we're getting ice reports, for example, anywhere from portions of texas all wait to jackson tennessee and on the northern side of it it's starting to switch to snow. yet another cold front has passed there. as this drops temperatures, the wide area of rain, rain becomes snow and ice. look at some of these temperature contrasts. temperatures have dropped 30 degrees from yesterday at this time just that short distance from memphis to atlanta, a 40-degree change. and atlanta in the 70s today will drop. i really think this 54 is the overnight temperature. probably for the 40s. houston also in the 70s will be stuck in the 40s tomorrow. that's how big that temperature drop is with all of this. that's why this is going to convert. the one good piece of news. once this clears through we have a nice dry stretch for at least a co

let's bring in nicole mitchell for today's environmental impact. how are the next few months shaping up here? >> it dependency what you want in your forecast and what you might be getting. where you looked earlier at things like temperatures, let's look at where you might be seeing a little more rain and what that means and why we're seeing those influences. heading to the four corners region west the accident, that is rain influenced by el niÑo. minnesota, wisconsin less rain possible because of the pattern out there. you look at california, equal chances, more or less rain, doesn't look too bad if you look at it in terms of that. while we're in drought conditions, we can use extra. i showed the temperature maps earlier, still high heat in the area so that will continue to dry things out. what does that do for drought conditions? well we're going to be looking at the areas in brown. that's where you see the increasing areas. i mentioned the midwest with less rain, of course that would increase it there but really the west. yellows are place where