Major winter storm dumps snow in mid-Atlantic states
A major winter storm slammed into the mid-Atlantic region Monday, snarling morning commutes and daily routines with heavy snow and freezing rain.
By the afternoon, a fresh layer of snowfall had dusted over Cincinnati, New York and Philadelphia. Some places were bracing for an especially heavy buildup: Washington, D.C., could see up to 12 inches by Tuesday morning.
The storm has snarled several modes of transportation: Thousands of flights — including most of those scheduled at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Monday — were canceled, as were dozens of Amtrak trains in the busy Northeast corridor and other affected states. Dangerous driving conditions were expected from West Virginia to Delaware, the Weather Prediction Center said.
More than 300,000 people in the storm’s path were without power Monday afternoon, from Missouri to Virginia, according to utility-tracking website PowerOutage.us.
Several states — including Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland — as well as Washington, D.C., and parts of New Jersey, have declared states of emergency.
The Washington area may see a lull in snowfall during the afternoon, according to Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He said the snowfall was likely to pick up again Monday evening and overnight.
The storm swept across the Midwest over the weekend, and an additional 2 to 4 inches of snow is still likely to fall in parts of the Ohio Valley, where travel disruptions continue.
Some southern states were getting a mix of sleet, freezing rain, and icy buildup Monday. In northern Kentucky and parts of southern West Virginia, ice accumulation was expected to surpass a quarter inch, creating dangerous conditions for drivers and pedestrians and increasing the risk of power failures.
The Southeast could also see severe thunderstorms Monday, according to the Weather Prediction Center.
Deadly snow blasted Midwestern states
The storm has been moving east from the Midwest, where blizzard conditions in Kansas and Missouri led to the deaths of at least three people and created hazardous conditions for travelers.
The weather service in Kansas City, Missouri, reported that Kansas City International Airport had received 11 inches of snow Sunday, the fourth-largest single-day total in the city’s recorded history.
In Topeka, Kansas, the weather service said late Sunday that it expected a final total of 14.1 inches, which would be the third-highest single-day snowfall recorded in the area.
People in the Kansas City area hunkered indoors, hemmed in by ice-covered driveways and roads deemed too treacherous for travel. In some places, lightning and booming thunder accompanied gusting winds as the storm blew across the region.
“This is a rare blizzard for Kansas City,” Gary Lezak, a longtime meteorologist in the area, said Sunday. “It is insanely cold.”
It was deadly, too. West of Salina, Kansas, a fire truck and several tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles overturned, including one incident in which an SUV slid off the road near Wichita and rolled down an embankment, killing both occupants.
Trucks lost control on icy roads and went spiraling into ditches, and pileups backed up traffic on interstate highways across the Midwest. The Missouri Highway Patrol reported more than 150 storm-related crashes in the state, including one crash that killed a 61-year-old man, and said Monday that the roads remained dangerous even as the snow began to ebb.
Cold weather lingers
The snow is expected to taper off by Tuesday morning, although light snowfall may continue during the day over parts of the Central Appalachians. Cold, gusty weather is forecast to follow.
The Weather Prediction Center warned that nighttime temperatures were expected to fall into the single digits and near zero across the Central Plains and into the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Daytime highs in these areas are projected to stay below freezing, while the mid-Atlantic will see slightly less cold conditions, with daytime temperatures near freezing.
“Some of those really much-below-normal temperatures are going to be expected to linger through most of this week,” Taylor said, adding that cold weather advisories had been issued extending as far south as Florida. From the eastern Rockies to the East Coast, temperatures were forecast to be about 10 to 12 degrees below seasonal averages.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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