|
 The latest in a series of weather systems to pummel the
winter-weary eastern United States, the storm dumped about 4 inches
of snow on the U.S. capital by early evening as it swept from the
Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast, the National Weather
Service said.
Temperatures would be about 30 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees
Celsius) below normal as a cold front settled in from Great Plains
to the Atlantic coast, said Brian Hurley, a weather service
meteorologist.
Instead of the normal high of around 50 Fahrenheit (10 Celsius),
temperatures in the region were plunging into the teens Fahrenheit
(minus 8 Celsius), he said.
On Tuesday, federal agencies in the Washington, D.C., area will open
two hours later than normal and employees have the option to work
from home.
Icy roads in Virginia were blamed for at least one death on Monday
morning when a 30-year-old man drove his pickup truck into an
embankment, flipping the vehicle and striking a tree, police said.
At least four weather-related traffic deaths in Texas, Oklahoma and
Tennessee were blamed on the wide-ranging storm over the weekend.
Although the snow bypassed northern cities including New York and
Boston, by early on Monday New York's temperature had already peaked
at 23 F (-5 C), Hurley said.
Freeze warnings were in place from the Canadian border into Texas.
The main electric grid operator for most of Texas issued a
conservation alert due to expected higher demand, and heavy sleet
left about 30,000 homes and businesses in Memphis, Tennessee, out of
power, Memphis Light, Gas and Water reported.
The storm shrouded Washington, D.C., in snow and prompted the U.S.
government to shutter its area offices, and Congress put off
scheduled votes. Some government employees off work shoveled their
sidewalks and then took their children sledding in Maryland.
MERCURY STUCK IN SINGLE DIGITS
Steve Zubrick, a weather service meteorologist for the Washington
area, said overnight lows were forecast at 9F (-13C). That would be
close to the March 1873 record of 4F (-16C), the last time
Washington temperatures went below 10F (-12C) in the month of March.
The governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Mississippi and Tennessee
declared states of emergency, and schools and local governments
throughout the area closed. Maryland and West Virginia shut state
offices as the storm dumped a foot of snow on the Appalachian
Mountains.
In Beckley, West Virginia, the snow forced schools to close, another
headache for officials already struggling to make up 15 days of
school lost because of weather.
[to top of second column] |
But for student Johnathan Tippley, 15, the day off meant time to
grab a snow shovel and make money.
"On a day like this you can make a killing. Plus, there's nothing
else to do right now ... might as well make some cash," he said.
The snow meant cold, hard cash for store owners like Clay Butler,
who runs Pleasants Hardware in Richmond, Virginia, which sold out a
supply of ice melt that had barely been touched in the previous
three years.
"It's definitely been good for business. We've sold a lot of
shovels," Butler said.
About 2,900 U.S. flights were canceled and nearly 5,000 were delayed
on Monday because of the storm, according to airline tracking site
FlightAware.com.
The worst-hit airport was Washington's Reagan National, where more
than 80 percent of flights were called off.
Esteban Rodriguez, 26, said he was resigned about rescheduling his
flight back home to Central America from Reagan National. He said he
had grown accustomed to winter weather while studying sustainable
energy in Iceland.
"Even I am used to it, and I'm from Guatemala," Rodriguez said as a
dozen snowplows labored to clear runways and taxiways of snow.
On the West Coast, a weather front will move onshore over the
Pacific Northwest and northern California through Tuesday, bringing
much-needed rain and snow to the region, the National Weather
Service said.
Snow also is expected over parts of the Rocky Mountains and the
northern Great Plains, it said.
(Additional reporting by Gary Robertson in Virginia, Alice Popovici
in Maryland, Ann Moore in West Virginia, Tom Ramstack in Washington,
Jon Herskovitz in Texas, Tim Ghianni in Tennessee, Barbara Goldberg
in New York and Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; editing by Nick Zieminski, Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
