A powerful winter storm was expected to drop roughly 30 to 60 centimetres of snow on parts of the Northeast just a day after it swept through the nation's middle, dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas and ruining holiday travel plans for thousands.
The storm, which was blamed for six deaths, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and made its way into the Northeast Wednesday night. Within hours, there was as much as 30 centimetres of snow in some locations.
National Weather Service spokesman David Roth said the Northeast's heaviest snowfall would be in northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and inland sections of several New England states before the storm ended Friday morning and headed to Canada.
The storm has already blown into parts of Eastern Canada overnight, prompting storm warnings and flight cancellations.
Little or no accumulation was expected in the U.S. East Coast's largest cities: New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Other areas were to get a messy mix of rain and snow or just rain — enough to slow down commuters and those still heading home from visits with family.
Hundreds of flights cancelled, delayed
Hundreds of flights were cancelled or delayed on Wednesday and scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts. said John Kwiatkowski, an Indianapolis-based meteorologist with the weather service: "The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex."
'The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex.'—Indianapolis-based meteorologist John Kwiatkowski
The storm system spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day, startling people like Bob and Sherry Sims of Mobile, Alabama, who had just finished dinner.
"We heard that very distinct sound, like a freight train," said Bob Sims.
Power was still out at the Sims' home on Wednesday, but the house wasn't damaged and they used a generator to run heaters to stay warm. Some neighbours were less fortunate, their roofs peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees.
The storm also left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida saw severe thunderstorms.
Deadly car accidents
Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were urged to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.
Matthew Kirchner, 8, digs a snow fort in front of his house on North Hartley Street in York, Pa. on Wednesday. (York Daily Record/Kate Penn/Associated Press) About 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of about 8 centimetres an hour in some places.
Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana.
The day after Christmas wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.
Power outages in Arkansas, Indiana
More than 1,600 flights were cancelled, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, and some airlines said they would waive change fees. By early Thursday only minor delays were reported.
In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 25 centimetres of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas.
Gov. Mike Beebe, who declared a statewide emergency, sent out National Guard teams, and Humvees transported medical workers and patients. Snow hadn't fallen in Little Rock on Christmas since 1926, but the capital ended Tuesday with 26 centimetres of it.
'A lot of people are staying off the road. I think people are being smart.'—Louis Zalewa, store worker in Willington, Conn.
Other states also had scattered outages. Duke Energy said it had nearly 300 outages in Indiana, with few left in Ohio by early afternoon after scores were reported in the morning.
As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of 30 centimetres or more.
Few truckers were stopping into a TravelCenters of America truck stop in Willington, Conn., near the Massachusetts border early Thursday. Usually 20 to 30 an hour stop in overnight, but high winds and slushy roads had cut that to two to three people an hour.
"A lot of people are staying off the road," said Louis Zalewa, 31, who works there selling gasoline and staffing the store. "I think people are being smart."
As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.
"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 202-hectare farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks — we don't know what we're going to get."
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