By Amy Graff
A sprawling storm was bringing powerful winds, snow and freezing conditions from the Midwest to the Northeast beginning Monday, already causing power outages and disrupting travel as conditions are expected to worsen through the week.
As one storm was moving away from New England — and was still expected to continue producing strong, gusty winds across the Northeast and Great Lakes over the next couple of days — the next winter storm was hitting the Central Plains and Midwest on Monday, then likely moving to the mid-Atlantic by Wednesday and the Northeast by Thursday.
“In the wake of the snow, it’s going to get very cold,” said David Roth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Millions were already under extreme cold warnings, from the Upper Midwest and Plains down to Oklahoma and parts of Texas. In some areas that were flooded in recent days, including parts of Kentucky, southern Indiana and northwest Tennessee, temperatures had sharply dropped to below freezing, and would continue to dip, Roth said. Ice in flooded areas could slow the retreat of the water, he added, making recovery more complex.
“The cold is going to persist through Friday,” he said.
Blizzard warnings also remain in effect for the western slopes of the central Appalachian Mountains because of strong winds, although they were expected to taper off later Monday. High wind warnings were in effect across the Northeast, from parts of Delaware to northeastern Maine, until Monday evening.
In southwest Detroit, where temperatures dropped to the single digits, a broken water main flooded roads and homes in the region, city officials said. Photos and videos posted to social media appeared to show residents being rescued by boat from icy waters that reached up to car windows.
Power outages, downed trees and hazardous road conditions could continue to disrupt daily life and upend travel plans across the affected regions.
Sunday’s windstorm delivered gusts approaching or exceeding hurricane strength, including 76 mph gusts at Camp David, located about 1,841 feet in the Catoctin Mountains in northern Frederick County, Maryland, according to the weather service. Sustained hurricane force winds start at 74 mph.
Wind gusts of 71 mph were recorded at New Jersey’s Atlantic City International Airport on Sunday, according to the weather service. At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the winds were recorded up to 65 mph, said Connor Belak, a meteorologist with the weather service.
One woman died in Philadelphia after a tree fell onto her vehicle Sunday evening, the Philadelphia Police Department said.
The high winds led to widespread power outages across much of the mid-Atlantic, according to Poweroutage.us, which tracks power outages. Nearly 70,000 customers were without power in Pennsylvania on Monday afternoon. Travel was largely back to normal Monday after hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled in New York on Sunday, according to airline tracking website FlightAware.
About 2 1/2 inches of snow fell Saturday evening in parts of Connecticut, including Fairfield and Middlesex counties. Areas across Massachusetts and Rhode Island got 2 to 5 inches of snow by Sunday morning, and as much as 7 inches fell in northern Massachusetts.
An unusual surge of warm, springlike moisture poured into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and the lower Mississippi Valley on Saturday — triggering torrential rains that turned roads into rivers and created a sloppy, wet mess.
Some of the worst flooding occurred in northwest Tennessee and in western and central Kentucky. At least 10 people have died in the severe weather in Southern states.
This storm is dragging a mass of bitter cold Arctic air from Canada into the Great Plains and will pull it into the south-central United States. Some locations will likely record their lowest temperatures of the winter so far, the Weather Prediction Center said.
