Snow strikes deep in the heart of Dixie
A major winter storm began its frigid assault on the East Coast on Wednesday, draping southern states with amounts of snow and ice unseen in decades as forecasters warned that parts of the Northeast soon could face blizzard conditions. Europe hit by howling winds /
As snow fell as far south as Florida, dire predictions and winter storm warnings stretched north to Maine. The National Weather Service said areas between Virginia Beach and Boston could see up to a foot of snow by Thursday night, with even more possible elsewhere in New England.
The governors of Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina declared states of emergency, schools were closed Wednesday across the Southeast and more than 2,000 flights were preemptively canceled ahead of Thursday’s expected onslaught.
Many locations in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast are expected to see record-low temperatures Friday, with highs reaching only single digits and teens in some places. By Saturday, much of New England could wake up to subzero cold.
Forecasters predicted the storm will turn into a “bomb cyclone,” sonamed because it will explosively intensify, bringing heavy snows and gusting winds. It also will draw numbing polar air south in its wake.
Meteorologists issued bleak forecasts Wednesday about what could make its way across the Northeast Corridor. The National Weather Service extended its blizzard warning into Boston, said New England could see up to 3 inches of snowfall per hour and warned it would make “travel difficult, if not impossible.”
The Washington region is expected to miss the worst of the snow, with forecasts predicting between a dusting and 2 inches. Outside the Beltway, however, forecasts are for up to a foot in the Norfolk, Virginia, area.
Snowfall north of Washington also could be intense, but some officials are more concerned about the storm’s brutal second act, when temperatures are forecast to fall to as much as 40 degrees below normal across a wide swath of the Eastern Seaboard — a bitter freeze after several days of already record lows.
In eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the weather service said it was particularly worried about power failures occurring amid arctic air on Friday and Saturday. Suffolk County in New York was under a blizzard warning Thursday, while New York City was warned to expect more than 6 inches of snow and “significant travel delays.”
“Confidence in accumulating snowfall has increased for parts of the Northeast as the (storm) is expected to track closer to the coast and intensify rapidly,” the National Weather Service said.
Authorities announced preparations for dangerous conditions, saying they had plows and massive supplies of salt ready to hit the road. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would activate the state’s emergency operations center, while Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker pleaded with people to stay off the roads.
The storm already was wreaking havoc on air travel ahead of its arrival in the Northeast, grounding waves of flights. More than 2,000 flights scheduled for Thursday were halted, most of them through Boston and the three New York-area airports. Airlines issued waivers for travelers, allowing people to change their flights without fees.
But before the storm made its way to the highly populated Northeast Corridor, it brought snow to areas not used to seeing such things — places like the Sunshine State. It wasn’t heavy — for a visitor from Chicago, the snowfall would have registered as a light mist — but there it was, snow falling over Tallahassee, Florida’s capital.
Flakes fell from the
sky and coated cars, lawns and sidewalks in a city where the weather topped 70 degrees just last week. The occasion was summed up by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper, which published a story headlined: “Relive all nine terrifying minutes of the great Tallahassee blizzard of 2018.”
The storm shut down roads throughout the Southeast and, in several places, closed schools, giving Floridians used to seeing classes canceled for hurricanes some experience with snow days instead. In Georgia, where some parts of the state saw as much as 3 inches of snow, Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for 28 southeastern counties, warning that the snowfall and freezing rain could melt and then refreeze, “producing additional ice-related hazards.”
As the snow and icy rain turned the parking lot of a Harris Teeter supermarket to slush shortly before noon in James Island, South Carolina, just across the Intracoastal Waterway from Charleston, some people headed in for supplies. They stocked up on water, hot dogs, bread and milk. Others went out just to enjoy the rare sight of snow in a southern city.
“It’s beautiful,” said Kara Stonecypher, 20, a College of Charleston student, as she strolled the city’s High Battery along the water. “It changes everything.”
Randy Pelzer, of Charleston, grabbed his cross-country skis and poles, using them to traverse the streets, something he said he had not done since 8 inches of snow fell there just days before Christmas in 1989.