Winter storm hits central US, barrels towards Washington

(Reuters) – A winter storm introduced snow, ice and freezing temperatures to a broad swath of the U.S. on Sunday, with some 60 million individuals throughout greater than a dozen states from Kansas to New Jersey below winter climate warnings and advisories.

The storm was shifting towards the mid-Atlantic, the place Washington, D.C. was bracing for heavy snow and bitter chilly on Monday, the identical day the U.S. Congress is about to satisfy and formally certify Republican Donald Trump’s election as president.

Republican Home Speaker Mike Johnson advised Fox Information on Sunday the climate wouldn’t stop lawmakers from finishing up their duties. However federal workplaces within the nation’s capital will probably be closed, the Workplace of Personnel Administration introduced.

Kansas and elements of northwestern Missouri have been enduring blizzard situations, the Nationwide Climate Service mentioned. Roadways have been blanketed in snow and ice, and officers urged residents to keep away from journey.

A lot of the primary artery in Kansas, Interstate 70, was closed all through Sunday as a result of heavy snow and ice.

In Missouri, the state police have been sweeping a shut-down stretch of greater than 50 miles on Interstate 29, trying to find stranded motorists. As of late Sunday afternoon, troopers had responded to almost 600 stranded drivers and 285 crashes, the company mentioned on X.

Complete (EPA:TTEF) snowfall of between six and 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) was anticipated from southern Ohio to Washington. A whole bunch of faculties introduced prematurely that they might not open on Monday as a result of storm, together with public colleges in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Washington and Philadelphia.

In northern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, freezing rain and sleet will produce “hazardous ice accumulations,” the service mentioned. The again finish of the storm system, in the meantime, was producing extreme thunderstorms able to spinning off tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The storm compelled the cancellation of lots of of flights, together with greater than 275 in each Kansas Metropolis and St. Louis, based on the aviation monitoring web site FlightAware.

Governors in a number of states, together with Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia and Virginia, declared states of emergency.

The storm will transfer offshore on Monday night time, however bone-chilling arctic air is about to maneuver in behind it, with daytime temperatures on Monday and Tuesday predicted to be 10 to twenty levels F beneath common from the Nice Plains to the East Coast, based on the climate service.