Snow and wind batter parts of US, with threat of thunderstorms and tornadoes starting later Sunday
CHICAGO (AP) — A broad and erratic patchwork of severe weather rumbled across much of the U.S. on Sunday, dumping heavy snow and making roads impassable in the Upper Midwest while damaging high winds swept across the Plains. Even Hawaii was affected, with parts hit by severe flooding.
Portions of the mid-South readied for late-day thunderstorms that forecasters say will spread eastward and by Monday threaten a large swath of the Eastern U.S., with mid-Atlantic states — including Washington, D.C. — most at risk for high winds and tornadoes.
Successive punches of snow, wind and severe weather are “going to impact the eastern half of the United States,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys said in an interview. Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted.”
More than a foot (30.5 centimeters) of snow fell in some portions of the Minnesota and Wisconsin as of Sunday morning, according to National Weather Service reports, with another several inches likely to fall in the Minneapolis area amid blizzard warnings by the weather service.
Warnings of hazardous road conditions were issued across Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, where transportation officials warned of worsening conditions Sunday with low visibility and snow-covered roadways.
“Roads are becoming impassable in many of Wisconsin’s northern counties,” the Wisconsin Department of Transportation said on social media. “Please stay off the roads to keep yourself and others safe.”
The weather conditions created headaches for air travel too with hundreds of cancellations.
More than 600 flights flying out of and into the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport were canceled Sunday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions. Dozens more through Detroit were also scrapped.
Areas of central Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are likely to see over 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow, with higher isolated totals, Roys said. Lower snow accumulations in places like Chicago and Milwaukee late Sunday and Monday will still likely create troubles for commuters, he added.
While few to no power outages related to the weekend storm had been reported as of Sunday, roughly 150,000 utility customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan — where Friday’s gusts reaching 85 mph (137 km) — remained without electricity early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.
About 30 Nebraska National Guard have been deployed to help combat multiple wildfires across a broad swath of range and grassland, the state’s Emergency Management Agency said.
Three of the largest wildfires have damaged well over 900 square miles (2,331 square kilometers), the agency said, including one identified by officials as the Morrill County fire that’s burned well over 700 square miles (1,813 square kilometers).
One fire-related fatality was reported on Friday, and in a news release Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen urged residents to follow locally-issued evacuation orders, adding that winds were “supposed to be extraordinary” on Sunday.
The weather service issued a high-wind warning Sunday for most of Nebraska, with wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) possible amid falling snow. Roys said high winds will affect a region from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Great Lakes, and from Denver eastward to the Appalachian Mountains.
The National Weather Service warned that a line of severe storms with damaging winds would cross much of the Eastern U.S. by late Monday. It was to begin Sunday afternoon in the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio valleys.
The storm threat was expected to enter the Appalachians late Sunday and early Monday, then move toward the East Coast, where “severe thunderstorms with widespread damaging winds and several tornadoes” were expected during the day Monday, a weather service report said.
A stretch from parts of South Carolina to Maryland appeared most likely to experience particularly damaging winds Monday afternoon, the weather service said. That could include Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia and the nation’s capital. The weather service said an increased — albeit much lower — risk stretched north to a portion of New York and south to northern Florida.
Rain also continued falling Sunday in Hawaii, where acres of farmland and homes have been flooded, roads have been closed and shelters open.
Flash flooding has been a problem in recent days on Maui, Molokai and the Big Island, where rain had been falling from 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5.1 centimeters) an hour overnight, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
PowerOutage.us said about 48,000 electric customers were without power as of early Sunday.
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Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.