A wintry storm that made Thanksgiving travel miserable across much of the country gripped the eastern US with a messy mixture of rain, snow, sleet and wind, slowing the Monday morning commute, closing schools and offices and snarling air travel.
Forecasters said the nor’easter could drop 10in to 20in of snow by Tuesday morning from Pennsylvania to Maine. Heavy snow was possible in the Appalachian Mountains down to Tennessee and North Carolina.
Schools closed preemptively as rain was expected to turn into snow in the first significant storm of the season, a nor’easter so named because the winds typically come from the north-east.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo advised non-essential state employees to stay home on Monday and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy declared government offices for non-essential employees would close at noon.
More than 200 flights into or out of the US were canceled on Monday morning, with more than 450 delays. Airports in the New York and Boston areas accounted for many of them.
Tractor-trailers were banned or lower speed limits put in place on stretches of interstate highways in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Inland areas appeared to be in for the worst of it, with the forecast in Albany, New York, predicting 6in to 14in of snow.
Only 3in of snow was expected in New York City. Up to 9in, though, was possible in Boston by Tuesday night. As much as 5in was forecast for Philadelphia.
The trouble began in the east on Sunday as the storm moved out of the midwest. State police had responded to more than 550 storm-related crashes across New York by 7pm. Icy roads caused crashes on Interstate 84 in Pennsylvania, and ice closed part of Interstate 81 near Binghamton, New York, for a time.
The same storm has pummelled the US for days as it moved cross country, dumping heavy snow from California to the midwest and inundating other areas with rain.
Duluth, Minnesota, is cleaning up more than 21in of snow. Major highways reopened in Wyoming and Colorado after blizzard conditions and drifting snow blocked them.
