Good morning. We finally have a TikTok deal. ByteDance, the app’s Chinese parent company, reached an agreement to create a U.S. version owned by a group of non-Chinese investors. That concludes a six-year legal dispute about influence on social media — and about competition between two superpowers. President Trump continues to criticize Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, who won international acclaim for a recent speech about global “rupture.” Trump rescinded his invitation to Canada to join his “Board of Peace.” And European leaders held an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss Greenland and, more broadly, their fragile relationship with America. They’re set to propose new Arctic security plans. We’ll get to more news below. But I’d like to start today with the weather. It looks frightful.
Seeking shelterThe first significant storm of the winter season is likely coming to life this morning in the Rockies, bringing with it the potential to produce snow in Colorado and New Mexico before advancing on the plains of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In some circles, that is all anyone can talk about right now. Humans love a storm, perhaps especially an imminent one. We’re participants in a drama that’s about to begin. And it’s quite a drama. The system could expand significantly on Saturday, my colleague Judson Jones reports, with heavy snow on its northern flank, sleet and freezing rain in the middle, and punishing rain to the south. The combination could continue its march across Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee while snow blankets much of the Midwest. By nightfall, the system could arrive in Georgia and the Carolinas. On Sunday, the storm (probably!) reaches the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, potentially intensifying again to clobber the corridor that runs from Washington, D.C., to Boston, straight through New York City. Use this tool to discover how much snow may fall where you live. Back on the Plains, temperatures will likely be well below normal. And when Monday arrives, that same brutal, potentially record-breaking cold may settle in across the Eastern United States, leaving millions of people in parkas and moon boots well into next week. “It’s not something you see every winter,” one weather expert told Judson, adding that the storm “is likely to affect about half the U.S. population with accumulating ice, sleet or snow.”
Let it snowWhat kind of precipitation you end up experiencing, if any, will dictate the degree of damage your community may confront. Freezing rain and sleet conspire to hurt us the most. The freezing rain weighs down trees and power lines until they break. And the sleet piling up on sidewalks and roadways can create thick sheets of ice. People slip and fall. Vehicles spin off highways like tops. “Snow is one thing, but when you start talking about significant accumulation of sleet or freezing rain in particular, that’s the stuff that really causes more damage,” Eric Fisher, chief meteorologist for WBZ-TV in Boston, told Judson. That could be a big problem in places like Texas. There, freezing rain and sleet could combine with snow to create what’s known as “cobblestone ice,” an impermeable base layer that in December 2013 shut down the city of Fort Worth for days. “That transition from rain to sleet to snow can happen over a hundred miles or just one city block,” Judson told me yesterday. “We aren’t just looking at a flat map; we’re looking at a multilayered cake of air temperatures. And if one layer is off by a single degree, the snow icon on your phone can become a fantasy.” But straight snow can be brutal, too. In the heaviest bands of weather, forecasters say, we could end up with a foot or more on the ground. (Stay strong, Boston. Yesterday afternoon, WBZ’s weather team was saying that amount was not out of the question across much of southern New England.) Travel would be severely disrupted. Home lives, too. Among many other considerations, digging out can be hell on a person’s back.
Riders on the stormIs any of this actually going to happen? Most reporters cover the present. They bear witness and report what happened: “A fire broke out in a three-bedroom home on Route 48 in Imaginary, Iowa, late last night, igniting a blaze that by dawn had engulfed the barn behind it.” Weather reporters do that, too, of course. They stand in the wind and the rain and the snow and take notes. They tell us how bad it was or how the storm petered out. But just as often they report on the future. I asked Judson about that. He’s a meteorologist. How was he feeling, heading into the weekend, having told us what could happen during it? Is a storm like this Christmas morning for him? Or more of a horror movie? Here’s Judson: When it’s just snow, it feels like Christmas morning — snow brings a certain joy and a sense of shared wonder. But when I see ice in the forecast, as I do now, it turns into a horror movie. Ice is crippling; it brings down power lines and trees. It’s dangerous. The stress comes from the fact that weather is a science that people are often surprised to learn we still don’t fully understand. Standing in line before writing this, I overheard two people talking about the storm as if they knew exactly what would happen. Usually, my wife gives me a look that says, “Don’t say a word,” but she wasn’t there. I couldn’t help myself. I jumped in to explain the most likely scenario versus the outliers. I probably deflated their spirits a bit, but that’s the job: managing expectations before nature takes control. Stay safe, everyone. Take care of one another. For more
Politics
Greenland
Immigration
Other Big Stories
Europe can no longer count on American protection, so it’s time for European countries to build their own military independence, Rajan Menon writes. America’s preparedness should be overhauled to avoid a housing crisis as natural disasters become more destructive, Senators Tim Sheehy, Republican of Montana, and Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, write. Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on why Rep. Jasmine Crockett won't win her Senate race. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year.
Ephemeral creations: Take a look inside a Queens studio where Buddhas, sneakers and swans are carved with the knowledge that beauty, like ice, is fleeting. Your pick: Yesterday’s most-clicked story in The Morning was about visitors going wild after staff cuts at Yosemite. A pioneer: Barbara Aronstein Black became the first woman to lead an Ivy League law school, serving as dean of Columbia Law from 1986 to 1991. She died at 92.
27.5— That is how many inches of snow would eventually fall on Central Park during a storm that was hitting its midpoint on this day in 2016. It was the most snow to drop on New York City since record keeping began in 1869.
N.F.L.: The Indianapolis Colts are aware of an F.B.I. investigation into the death of their former owner Jim Irsay. N.B.A.: Referees missed a goaltending call on a potential Philadelphia 76ers game winner. Soccer: The U.S. women’s national team forward Trinity Rodman is staying with the Washington Spirit, signing a contract through 2028.
Here’s a plan for this weekend: Make like Ray Liotta in “Goodfellas” and stir up some |
