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 The National Weather Service predicted the storm will bring up to
9 inches of snow to the Washington area. Votes scheduled for Monday
in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate were postponed, and
District of Columbia Public Schools have canceled classes.
The storm "is going to be a real mess," said Bruce Sullivan, a
senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Silver
Spring, Maryland.
"The main system is injecting a lot of moisture and cold air out
over the Southern Plains," he said. "It's going to bring quite a bit
of precipitation."
Rainfall and snow associated with the system stretched over 1,500
miles, from southeastern Colorado to southern Massachusetts,
meteorologists said.
About 2,000 flights were canceled and 5,600 were delayed as of early
evening on Sunday due to the storm, according to the airline
tracking site FlightAware.com.
"Ripple-effect flight delays and cancellations are likely to reach
nationwide," said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
SNOW EMERGENCY
Boston and New York City should see only light snowfall, but
lingering freezing rain could complicate Monday morning's rush hour
for commuters.
By Sunday afternoon, up to nine inches of snow had already fallen on
parts of Indiana.
More than 40,000 homes in northeast Ohio were without power due to
downed transmission lines, according to Chad Self, a spokesman for
utility provider First Energy. Most customers should have power
restored by late Monday, the utility said.
Margie Gibson, 60, of Perry, 40 miles northeast of Cleveland, said
the storm disrupted power at her home.
"The power keeps popping on and off every half-hour. It goes off and
comes right back on," she said.
Central Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky were also at risk for heavy
ice conditions and power outages, according to AccuWeather.
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Though temperatures will not be as frigid as during some other storm
systems this winter, when the so-called polar vortex pushed Arctic
air across large swaths of the county, the cold air will blanket
areas as far south as Texas and North Carolina.
Temperatures in Lubbock, Texas, in the northwestern part of the
state, were around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) on Saturday
but by Sunday morning were a bone-chilling 18 degrees (minus 8
degrees Celsius), Sullivan of the National Weather Service said.
Amanda Dyer watched a vehicle slide off the road as she dropped her
husband off at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on
Sunday.
"There was slush kicking up from the cars and the road," she said.
"When we got home our car doors were frozen shut."
Forecasters urged motorists to use caution because slick roads and
fast-moving bands of snow could cause traffic accidents.
In southwest Missouri, slick conditions were blamed in the death
early Sunday of a 13-year-old girl when the driver of the Ford
Explorer she was riding in went off the highway and overturned.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported two adults and another
child in the vehicle suffered serious injuries, and nobody in the
car was wearing a seatbelt.
On Saturday in Colorado, a heavy midday dump of snow led to a
104-vehicle pileup in Denver. One woman was killed and 30 people
were hospitalized, police and local media said.
(Additional reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland, Brendan O'Brien in
Milwaukee and Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Ellen
Wulfhorst, Sophie Hares, Chris Reese and Mohammad Zargham)
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