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 The storm system dropped between 3 and 6 inches of snow on West
Virginia early Sunday before blanketing the Washington, D.C., metro
area with its first accumulation of the season.
Marching north, it was expected to pummel the East Coast with snow,
sleet, and freezing rain from Baltimore to north of Portland, Maine,
according to the National Weather Service.
The storm system coated roads and highways from Virginia through
southeastern Pennsylvania with snow and ice, and reduced visibility
made car travel treacherous. The Delaware Memorial Bridge, which
links Delaware with New Jersey, was closed briefly "due to ice and
multiple accidents," according to the bridge's official Twitter
account.
Parts of Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey could get up to
a foot of snow, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service.
"What's really significant about this system is this narrow band of
heavy snow in some areas," he said.
Flights to and from Philadelphia International were temporarily
grounded, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Just to the west of Philadelphia, near Morgantown, more than 50 cars
and trucks were damaged in a series of chain-reaction crashes on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike just after noon on Sunday, turnpike spokesman
Carl DeFebo said.
The crash that started the chain reaction involved 12 vehicles. One
man was killed when he exited his vehicle after that crash, DeFebo
said.
In the Northeast, the storm system closed in on New York City and
could linger over the tri-state area through Monday morning's rush
hour commute. The New York City Department of Sanitation issued a
"snow alert" starting Sunday afternoon, and was preparing salt
spreaders and plows to clear covered roads.
An expected 1 to 3 inches of snowfall in Philadelphia and New York
City would be the first of the season, and comes about 10 days
earlier than the average first snowfall, according to the National
Weather Service.
2,500 FLIGHTS CANCELED
Professional football games went ahead but several players were
injured by slipping on the slick fields.
Snow covered the ground and stands at Baltimore's M&T Stadium, where
the Baltimore Ravens played the Minnesota Vikings in driving wind
and 25-degree Fahrenheit (minus 4 Celsius) conditions. The
Philadelphia Eagles beat the Detroit Lions in near white-out
conditions.
The blast of cold air and precipitation also brought light snowfall
to the Midwest, including parts of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.
A number of traffic accidents were reported on Milwaukee-area roads
and freeways, including a pileup of as many as 20 cars that shut
down a highway in Racine County. In a separate crash, one person was
killed after a vehicle flipped over along a slick road, the
Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office said.
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In Arizona, about 300 vehicles were stuck overnight Saturday to
Sunday on a mountainous, 30-mile stretch of Interstate 15 in
northwestern Arizona after heavy snow and icy conditions led to a
chain-reaction crash set off by multiple jack-knifing semi-trailer
trucks, said Bart Graves, spokesman for the Arizona Department of
Public Safety.
No one was hurt, despite multiple vehicles crashing into each other
or skidding off the road, Graves said. More than 2,500 flights were
canceled nationwide on Sunday, according to tracking website
Flightaware.com. Airports in Newark, New Jersey, New York City, and
Philadelphia reported delays.
More than 2,000 stranded passengers slept on cots and in chairs at
the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport Saturday night, down from about 4,000
the night before, said spokesman David Magana.
Sunday evening, more than 1,000 passengers planned to stay overnight
at the airport, Magana said. Airport officials provided tents for
families with small children, as well as musicians, comedians,
face-painters and balloon artists to amuse the stuck passengers, he
said.
More than 400 scheduled Dallas-Ft. Worth departures were canceled by
mid-afternoon on Sunday, he said.
North Texas was still shivering under below-freezing temperatures
left behind after an ice storm knocked out power lines, leaving some
267,000 customers in without power at the height of the storm,
according to utility provider Oncor.
The storm also battered Arkansas and Tennessee with ice, snow and
zero-degree temperatures, leaving streets a slick and slushy danger
zone. At least three people were killed when their cars skidded off
the road, authorities said.
As many as 7,000 people in Tennessee were still without power
Sunday. "For some of our customers it may take a couple of days to
get their power back," said Rob Fisher, director of Emergency
Management for Dickson County.
The Arctic chill from the storm was so widespread that Western
states, including Nevada, Washington and California, were slammed
with snow, sleet and record-setting cold temperatures, according to
the National Weather Service.
Temperatures in Jordan, Montana, fell to a record low of 42 degrees
Fahrenheit below zero (minus 41 degrees Celsius) on December 7, also
the lowest temperature recorded for the country during the storm.
The cold weather system will leave the East Coast on Monday, the
National Weather Service said.
(Additional reporting by Timothy Ghianni and Jonathan Kaminsky;
editing by Daniel Trotta, Marguerita Choy, Sharon Bernstein and
Jackie Frank)
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