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A dangerous winter storm brought significant snowfall, strong thunderstorms and blustery winds to the East Coast Monday — just hours after knocking out power to tens of thousands and coating highways in treacherous ice across the Southeast.
About a foot of snow was forecast for parts of New England, New York state, Ohio and Pennsylvania through Tuesday morning, forecasters said.
New York City is set to be spared most — if not all — of the snowfall after the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the Big Apple in the early hours of Monday.
The Long Island and Connecticut coastal areas were expected to be hit with gale conditions with the winds gusts forecast to top out around 60 mph.
It comes as tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida overnight as Winter Storm Izzy ripped through the Southeast.
Highway patrols reported hundreds of vehicle accidents as roadways turned to ice and thousands of flights were canceled across the region.
“It’s a very expansive storm,” Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Brian Hurley said.
“A lot of real estate is going to get 4 to 8 inches of snow and a lot more are also going to get to get some of that ice accumulation.”
As much as 10 inches of snow was dumped in North Carolina where highway patrol responded to 300 car crashes and nearly 800 calls for service by midafternoon on Sunday.
Two people, both 41, were killed when their car drove off the road and into trees just outside Raleigh, authorities said.
A tractor-trailer also slid off Highway 147 overpass in Durham, North Carolina, landing in a vertical position from the bridge to the highway below. The truck driver was stable after sustaining non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Wet roadways in the South were expected to refreeze on Monday and hazardous driving conditions were forecast for a large portion of the East Coast.
Plow trucks were already scattered along highways up the East Coast by Monday in preparation.
Meanwhile, 130,000 customers were still without power in South Carolina, North Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Pennsylvania on Monday morning, according to poweroutage.us.
More than 3,000 flights were canceled in the US on Sunday — and 1,300 had already been axed before 8 a.m. Monday, the live tracking site FlightAware showed.
With Post wires
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