Winter won't officially begin for nearly two more weeks, but a winter storm continued to plow across much of the eastern part of the U.S. on Monday, bringing a dangerous mix of snow, ice and freezing rain. The storm knocked out power in some areas, fouled morning commutes and caused more than a thousand flights to be cancelled.
"Heavy snow fell Sunday in the Mid-Atlantic, with more than 8 inches reported in Philadelphia and a foot in nearby Newark, Del.," The Associated Press reports.
From the National Weather Service:
"A complicated storm extending from the Great Lakes/Northeast to the Central Gulf Coast will move northeastward to Southeastern Canada and off the East Coast by Tuesday. The system will produce freezing rain/sleet over parts of the Mid-Atlantic that will change over to rain by Monday afternoon. Snow will develop over the Great Lakes into New England through Monday evening."
The AP notes that "power outages were reported in Virginia, parts of West Virginia, Maryland and the metropolitan Washington, D.C."
As of early Monday morning, airline tracker Flightaware.com said 1,175 flights that had been scheduled to travel in the U.S. were scuttled.
Much of that travel trouble began at the airport at Dallas-Fort Worth, where more than 350 flights have been canceled, according to Flightaware. Dallas was shellacked with up to four inches of ice when the storm barreled through on its way east, according to NPR member station KERA. Many schools and roads will be closed Monday, the station says.
KERA also says that more than 115,000 people in North Texas lost electrical service over the weekend because of the storm — and that the temperatures in Dallas aren't expected to touch 40 degrees until Wednesday.
The most active portions of the storm are now strung out in an area from Virginia into New England. Areas that were hit with snow this weekend — such as New York and Philadelphia — could see anywhere from 1-6 inches early this week, according to AccuWeather.
"This snow will cause headaches for millions on Tuesday across the I-95 corridor, especially those taking to the roads," meteorologist Brian Lada writes.
In the West, a mass of cold air has brought bone-chilling cold to areas that already endured the winter storm.
In Montana, for instance, Missoula's KPAX TV is predicting a high of 17 Monday, with a low of 6 below zero.
And a separate system from western Canada is expected to move into the Northern Plains and bring snow to parts of that area and the Rockies, according to the National Weather Service.
Update at 8:20 p.m. ET. Weather-Related Deaths At 12:
CNN reports: "At least 12 people have died because of the weather, mostly in traffic accidents. Eight died in Oklahoma alone, including a 6-year-old who fell through ice on a creek in Tulsa and men who died in house fires in Westville and Tulsa, the state Department of Emergency Management reported on Monday."
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