Officials urged people to stay off the roads Wednesday in portions of Virginia and North Carolina where a storm dropped heavy snow and caused hundreds of accidents in places unaccustomed to significant accumulations.
The storm that already dropped snow in the Midwest spread across the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and into places that are just starting to clean up after a weekend of deadly floods.
Up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow was possible through Thursday along the Atlantic Coast in Virginia and major ice accumulations were forecast in eastern North Carolina.
The National Weather Service said snowfall rates of up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour were seen in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and in northeastern North Carolina.
Meteorologist Alec Butner said additional accumulations were likely Thursday morning. While Butner said the snowfall in Norfolk won't approach the 1892 record of 18.6 inches (47.2 centimeters), it’s still “fairly infrequent” to reach snowfall totals of about 8 to 9 inches (20 to 23 centimeters).
Virginia State Police reported 275 accidents by late Wednesday afternoon, including at least two dozen involving injuries. Accidents also closed portions of Interstate 95 and I-85 near Raleigh, North Carolina.
Nearly 5,600 flights were canceled or delayed across the U.S., including more than 400 in and out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware.com.
Elsewhere, a polar vortex sent temperatures plunging from Montana to southern Texas.
‘Too much for us’
As thick snowflakes pelted Norfolk, Virginia, a line of shoppers snaked deep into a Harris Teeter grocery store, past loaves of bread on shelves. In the parking lot of a Total Wine store, college students in fraternity sweatshirts lugged a keg of beer to their car.
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But on the sidewalks of the city’s historic Ghent neighborhood, there was an eerie quiet. A white-haired shih tzu named Sasha tramped delicately in newly fallen snow Wednesday.
“This is a little weird for her. I love the snow, but it looks like this is a bit too much for us,” said Sasha's owner, Lotfi Hamdi, who stocked up on milk and bread. “If it’s more than five inches, I think that’s a bit risky for us. Luckily I’m off for the next couple of days.”
Sasha isn’t alone in feeling out of sorts. The winter months in this city of 230,000 people on the Chesapeake Bay sometimes pass with barely a dusting of snow. Schools and many businesses closed Wednesday throughout the Hampton Roads region and could remain shuttered into the weekend. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard reduced operations.
Deja storm all over again
Virginia remained under a state of emergency that Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued for another storm last week that allowed the National Guard and state agencies to assist local governments. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein followed with an emergency declaration Tuesday. Both urged motorists to stay off the roads.
As snow, sleet and freezing rain arrived, Stein warned that "our greatest concerns remain power outages and road safety.”
Potential ice accumulations of up to one-half inch (1.3 centimeters) in places like Greenville and Goldsboro would cause tree branches to snap, said North Carolina Emergency Management Director Will Ray.
Officials said more than 1,200 crew members were ready or already clearing roads.
Snow after floods
Weekend storms that pummeled the eastern U.S. killed at least 19 people, including 14 in Kentucky, where a half-foot (15 centimeters) or more of snow was expected Wednesday.
“This is a snowstorm in the middle of a natural disaster,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.
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In southern West Virginia, weekend floods killed three people in McDowell County, destroying roads and disrupting public water systems. Shelters remained open at churches and schools.
The incoming snowstorm “is going to severely hinder, if not halt, a lot of the efforts that we have,” said McDowell County Commissioner Michael Brooks.
Bone-chilling cold
About 100 million people in the nation’s midsection were gripped by a cold wave. Hundreds of public school districts canceled classes or switched to online learning for a second day Wednesday in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.
Ashley Pippin, a spokeswoman for Special Olympics Kansas, is getting tired of the cold even as the group organizes a series of fundraising polar plunges, including three this weekend. It's so cold, firefighters might have to go out and break the ice.
“We’ve done it before,” Pippin said.
Hettinger, North Dakota, recorded a low temperature of minus 45 degrees (minus 42 Celsius) on Wednesday and had warmed to minus 13 (minus 25 Celsius) by midday. Denver broke a 19-year-old record when it dipped to minus 6 (minus 21 Celsius). In San Antonio, Texas, wind chill readings could dip as low as minus 2 (minus 19 Celsius) early Thursday. .
Earlier this month, famous groundhog Punxsatawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter weather.
“I was thinking I’d like to choke him,” said Robin White Stevens of hard-hit Grundy, Virginia, whose challenges this winter have included falling on her hip while walking along icy ditch lines. “We can’t catch a break weatherwise. Snow, flood. It’s a mess around here.”
But Michele Hunter, who drives a bus for a southeast Virginia transit authority and hails from Buffalo, New York, had a different take on winter. While she stocked up on groceries because stores were closing down, she said she's more accustomed to blizzards that bring feet of snow — not inches.
In Buffalo, life still mostly goes on, she said, unlike the standstill she's witnessing in coastal Virginia.
“This is light,” she said of the snow falling around her. “In Buffalo, we have to dig tunnels in order to get to the end of the street, to get on a snowmobile, to go get groceries. This is nothing.”