Although weakening, Tropical Storm Karen continued its path toward the Gulf Coast late Friday, with landfall expected sometime late Saturday or early Sunday morning.
Karen was just one of four major weather events impacting the USA on Friday: For what may be the first time in modern records, says Weather Underground weather historian Christopher Burt, the U.S. is facing a simultaneous threat from a tropical storm landfall, a blizzard, tornado outbreak, and extreme wild fire event:
A blizzard was pounding portions of the northern Rockies and northern Plains with more than two feet of snow in some spots; parts of the upper Midwest were bracing for a potentially destructive severe weather and tornado outbreak later Friday; and southern California was in the midst of what the National Weather Service was calling the most significant fire weather threat in five years.
