South under severe weather and flash flood threat, Northeast expecting snow
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(NEW YORK) — A storm system that brought rain and snow to Southern California will move into Texas and the South by Wednesday, bringing flash flood and severe weather threat.
The storm’s highest rain total was in Santa Barbara County, which saw 2.23 inches. Los Angeles County saw 1.62 inches and Santa Monica had 1.38 inches. Totals were less than an inch at Los Angeles International Airport and in Downtown Los Angeles.
Western storm will reemerge in southern Plains states by late afternoon on Wednesday, into the overnight hours with severe weather possible for central and northern Texas, including Dallas.
In addition, this storm system will bring very heavy rain and flash flood threat from Texas to western Kentucky, including Dallas, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky.
Locally some areas could see more than 4 inches of rain, this will lead to flash flooding on Thursday.
Snow squalls in the Northeast and Midwest
Several quick moving storm systems combined with the lake effect, will bring strong winds and snow to parts of the Great Lakes and Northeast today into Thursday.
Early on Tuesday, a snow squall warning was issued for Syracuse, New York, where visibility was dropping close to zero in spots.
At least five states this morning are under snow and wind alerts from the Midwest to the Northeast.
The heaviest snow and strongest winds will be from northern Michigan to western Pennsylvania and New York and into northern New England, where locally a foot of snow is forecast with wind gusts near 60 mph.
Whiteout conditions are possible in some of these heavier snow bands.
Further south and east, for the I-95 corridor, a dusting to 1 inch of snow is possible from Hudson Valley in New York to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Boston and Hartford could see the snow.
(NEW YORK) — Tesla arson defendants will face the “full force of the law” for allegedly using Molotov cocktails to set fire to the electric vehicles and charging stations, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Thursday.
“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” Bondi said in a statement. “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”
Bondi is referring to the three people charged for their alleged involvement in recent attacks in Salem, Oregon; Loveland, Colorado; and Charleston, South Carolina.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also said Thursday the company has increased security nationwide after reports of vandalism targeting Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations.
“Tesla has ramped up security and activates Sentry Mode on all vehicles at stores,” Musk said in a post shared on X.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW ORLEANS) — The anticipation surrounding Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans is not just about which team will win, it’s whether or not the city can pull the game off without a serious security breach.
New Orleans has hosted 10 Super Bowls in previous years, but Sunday’s game at the Superdome is different. Just over a month before Sunday’s kick-off, the city was the target of a terrorist attack on New Year’s Day in which a driver racing down Bourbon Street killed 14 people, injured 57 others, and heightened fears among locals that the city is unprepared for the estimated 100,000 visitors expected to arrive this week.
“New Orleans never had a reputation as a high target type place” for terrorism, “it was always ‘the Big Easy,'” said Eric Cook, executive chef and owner of St. John, a restaurant in the city’s Central Business District that is just a short walk from the stadium. The attack, he said, “really made everyone realize we’re all vulnerable at any time. I have concerns about it, I really do.”
Security concerns were heightened this week after President Donald Trump announced he is planning to attend the game, a first for any sitting president.
NFL Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier said the NFL changed its security plan since the attack and is “constantly monitoring what is going on in the environment and security worlds” in the days leading up to the game. She said more than 2,700 state, federal, and local law enforcement will be present in and around the Superdome and private drones are prohibited. She declined to talk in specific about other measures the league is taking, citing security concerns.
In the weeks following the Bourbon Street attack, the FBI gave the game a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) 1 rating, “defined as a significant event with national and/or international importance that requires extensive federal interagency support,” according to a threat assessment the agency released in late January.
The FBI said the game, along with days of activities leading up to kick-off, make it “an attractive target for foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremists, lone offenders, hate crime perpetrators, and those engaged in other reportable targeted violence due to their potential to cause mass casualty incidents and draw attention to ideological causes.”
The report warns that a copycat attack is possible since “vehicle ramming has become a recurring tactic employed by threat actors in the west.” Other factors contributing to the threat environment is unrest in the Middle East, the high number of pre-game events in the city, the use of unauthorized unmanned aircraft systems, and the potential of cyberattacks “designed to facilitate short-term financial gain or highly visible, symbolic disruptions.”
Eric DeLaune, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans, is tasked with coordinating federal efforts around the Super Bowl. “In the days ahead, there will be a significant increased law enforcement presence in New Orleans, some of which will be visible and obvious,” he told reporters Monday.
A congressional delegation led by Alabama Rep. Dale Strong, the chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology, this week toured the site of the Bourbon Street attack and the Superdome before a briefing by the NFL and law enforcement officials.
“This tragedy could happen in any state, any city—that is why it is so important that we invest in local law enforcement and give them the capabilities they need to prevent crimes before they happen,” Strong said in a statement
Guns allowed, but not coolers
The Bourbon Street attack triggered a state of emergency from the state, which Gov. Jeff Landry followed up weeks later with an executive order that established a wide security perimeter around Bourbon Street, from Canal to St. Ann Streets and Royal to Dauphine Streets. Coolers and ice chests are prohibited and bag checks conducted by the Louisiana State Police will start Wednesday at every entry point leading to Bourbon Street.
For French Quarter residents like Glade Bilby, who has called the neighborhood home for more than 40 years and is president of French Quarter Citizens, a non-profit that focuses on quality of life issues, the added security is “welcome.” He said, however, the security focus on Bourbon Street is limiting.
Another attack “could happen anywhere,” he said. “If this happened on Barracks, Gov. Nichols, it still affects the French Quarter which is an international brand. If you’re really intent on doing evil, you’ll be able to do it no matter what.”
Bilby is among many here who have been vocal all week about the contraction established by Landry which prohibits coolers into the security perimeter while state law allows people to carry in firearms without a permit. “That’s very problematic. It ties one hand behind law enforcement’s back,” Bilby said.
When Landry took office last year, he signed into law legislation to allow for the carrying of a concealed handgun without a permit or training. He rejected pleas from lawmakers in New Orleans to make the French Quarter and other entertainment districts in the city exempt. That means, according to Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche “there’s nothing that can be done legally with respect to people bringing firearms into the French Quarter.”
If law enforcement discovers a checked bag contains a handgun, “they have no recourse but to let them walk into the French Quarter, and that poses a real threat,” Goyeneche told WWL radio last month.
Landry’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. He has not commented on rejecting the carve-out on his gun legislation for the French Quarter but said upon signing the gun bill: “It’s fundamentally clear—law-abiding citizens should never have to seek government permission to safeguard themselves and their families.”
New Orleans City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso said the city will continue to advocate to state lawmakers that an exception should be made to prohibit conceal carry in the French Quarter because the environment is so unique.
“You have so many tourists packed into a small space and we’re encouraging people to drink alcohol inside and outside. That’s the ethos of what is going on there,” he said. “Alcohol and guns don’t mix. This is not a partisan issue.”
Investigations pending
Besides the refusal to carve out the French Quarter as a gun-free zone, concerns remain that the city hasn’t learned a lesson from the security gaps that safety officials have said made it easier for Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen from Texas, to drive a truck for at least three blocks in the early morning of New Year’s Day.
Two investigations — one by the city council and a second launched by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill — are looking into why protective columns designed to block vehicle traffic were removed and why other anti-vehicle barriers were not deployed.
“The People of Louisiana deserve answers,” said Murrill. “We are committed to getting a full and complete picture of what was done or not done, and more importantly, what needs to change so we can prevent this from ever happening again.”
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told the city council she hired former New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton to serve as a consultant to investigate the security lapses.
Bratton did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the investigation.
Still, for all the promises and pending investigations and final reports, the big game will still proceed Sunday. Cook said an outcome without a major safety incident will be critical for businesses like his own that saw traffic drop following the New Year’s Day attack.
“We hope the success of this weekend will generate more trusting folks to come down here and visually see that New Orleans is open for business and we’re safe and we’re prepared,” Cook said.
Giarrusso admitted that New Orleanians are “weary and wary” but have no choice but to move forward.
“The whole point of terrorism is to prevent people from doing what in free society people are allowed to do,” he said. “We have to find a sweet spot of finding reasonable safety protection for people and ensuring we’re leading our lives the way we’re supposed to.”
(NEW YORK) — Last year, 2024, was the warmest year on record for the planet, easily breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.
Scientists say the unfolding El Niño event superimposed on long-term global warming is a primary driver of this huge spike in global surface temperatures since mid-2023. But the magnitude of the increase shocked many experts, leaving them somewhat puzzled about what else could be behind the remarkable temperature.
NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem), is expected to provide new data to help scientists understand how changing levels of different atmospheric aerosols impact Earth’s energy balance.
New research published in Environmental Research Letters investigated some of the factors contributing to the spike in global temperature. Researchers focused specifically on the things that impact the amount of energy entering and leaving the Earth, known as the planet’s energy balance.
Their findings show that atmospheric aerosol levels could be partly to blame for an energy imbalance that’s causing our accelerating warming rate.
This new data joins a growing list of research that points to atmospheric aerosols as a potentially significant contributor to our record-breaking surface temperatures. It also underscores the importance of better understanding how various atmospheric aerosols behave and interact with each other.
Atmospheric aerosols are tiny particles that can reflect sunlight back into space and reduce global temperatures. However, their concentrations have greatly diminished due to international efforts to reduce air pollution in recent decades. Now, more sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface, creating a heating effect.
For decades, we’ve been removing aerosols from our air without fully realizing the potential cascading effects of these actions.
To help solve this puzzle, climate scientists are eagerly awaiting the first batch of operational data from NASA’s PACE, launched nearly a year ago.
According to NASA, the PACE satellite can map atmospheric aerosols and differentiate how they absorb light and heat, characterizing them as “light” or “dark” in nature. Climate scientists say this will help them understand how changing levels of different atmospheric aerosols impact the planet’s energy balance and global temperature trends.
While satellite data has been publicly available since April, the satellite isn’t fully operational yet, according to NASA. That’s because the data is still undergoing verification and quality control, deeming it unusable in climate models and academic research. However, that will likely change later this year, as the data is currently undergoing its final validation stage.
ABC News’ Matthew Glasser contributed to this report.
