A powerful, slow-moving
storm that has affected much of the U.S. brought snow and bitter cold to the
Northeast Monday, snarling traffic, prompting another 1,650 U.S. flight
cancellations and leaving tens of thousands of people without power.
The storm covered parts
of North Texas in ice over the weekend and then moved East. Below-zero
temperatures crowned the top of the U.S. from Idaho to Minnesota, where many
roads still had an inch-thick plate of ice, polished smooth by traffic and
impervious to ice-melting chemicals.
Some of the most
difficult conditions were in North Texas. More than 22,000 Dallas-area homes
and businesses were still without power, according to electric utility Oncor.
That was down from 270,000 on Friday. Dallas students got a snow day.
More than half of the
nation's flight cancellations on Monday were at Dallas-Fort Worth International
Airport, dominated by American Airlines. About 650 travelers were stranded
there Sunday night.
Nationally, there have
been more than 6,100 flight cancellations since Saturday, according to
FlightStats.com, including more than 2,800 by American or its American Eagle
regional airline. American emerged from bankruptcy protection and merged with
US Airways on Monday.
From 1 inch to at least
5 inches of snow were forecast for Monday night into Tuesday for an area
stretching from Virginia into New York, the National Weather Service
said.
Dangerously cold
temperatures and wind chills were forecast for the western half of the U.S.,
the weather service said, with temperatures about 10 to 30 degrees below
average from the Rockies to the Great Lakes and lower Mississippi Valley,
Reuters reported.
In Washington, cab
driver Mahdi Abdi said he had been driving since around midnight and the main
roads were clear. But side streets were a different story.
"The small streets,
a lot of them are icy," said Abdi, 52. "I don't even go in."
What was forecast in the
Philadelphia area to be a tame storm with about an inch of snow gradually
changing over to rain mushroomed into a full-blown snowstorm. A foot of snow
was reported in Newark, Del. Philadelphia International Airport received 8.6
inches, more than it had all of last year. Other areas received far less: a
little over an inch was reported in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, which usually
is hit harder than downtown Philadelphia.
Sunday's snow fell so heavily
in Philadelphia that yard markers at Lincoln Financial Field -- where the
Eagles beat the Detroit Lions -- were completely obscured. It was almost as bad
in Pittsburgh, where the snow intensified after the opening kickoff.
Philadelphia fan Dave
Hamilton, of Ivyland, layered up for the game in Eagles gear.
"Twenty-seven years
I've been a season-ticket holder, I've never seen snow at the game like
this," he said. "It just kept coming down."
Heavy snow in the
Philadelphia area led to a number of accidents, including a fatal crash on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike that spawned fender-benders involving 50 cars, stranding
some motorists for up to seven hours. More than two dozen vehicles were
involved in another series of crashes on nearby Interstate 78.
Paul Jones, 24, a youth
hockey coach from Warminster in the Philadelphia suburbs, was on his way to a
game in Lancaster when he got stuck -- along with his fiancee, another coach
and three players -- in a major backup on the turnpike.
The roadway was
"snow-covered, slick," Jones said by phone from the car, where he was
a passenger and had been at a standstill for more than an hour.
"People are in and
out" of their vehicles, he said. "Kids are having a snowball fight on
the side of the road, making snow angels, people are walking their dogs."
Power outages were
reported in Virginia, parts of West Virginia, Maryland and the metropolitan
Washington, D.C., area following freezing rain, wet snow and sleet. Parts of
northwest and southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia got snow, while
sleet and freezing rain prevailed west and north of Richmond.
In Maryland, a
chain-reaction accident on Interstate 81 in Washington County involving more
than 20 vehicles delayed snow removal efforts for hours. The highway was closed
for more than three hours after a tractor-trailer ran into the median to avoid
cars that had spun out. It was hit by another tractor-trailer that overturned
and spilled its load. Several other tractor-trailers ran off the road and
jackknifed as their drivers tried to avoid the crash.
But the nasty weather
wasn't limited to the East Coast. Nebraska and Iowa saw snow; multiple
weather-related crashes were reported in Wisconsin, including two that were
fatal; and thousands of customers lost power in Mississippi because of sleet
and freezing rain.
A snowstorm that hit
along the Utah-Arizona border left hundreds of travelers stranded on Interstate
15 overnight into Sunday. The Arizona Highway Patrol said passengers in about
300 vehicles became stranded after up to 10 inches of snow and slick road
conditions prompted the closure of part of the highway. There were no immediate
reports of serious injuries.
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