A winter storm pushed up the Gulf Coast into the South and Atlantic coastal states today, dumping snow at the rate of up to 3 inches an hour, snarling traffic and closing schools, airports and businesses and sending anxious shoppers streaming to stores for supplies.
The Southern storm was expected to combine with a storm system moving across the northern Plains to spread more than a foot of snow in New England later today. Warnings and advisories for heavy snow spanned the East Coast from Georgia to Maine.
The storm also triggered severe thunderstorms across Florida and tornadoes touched down early today at New Port Richey, Crystal River and Tampa. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
A cold Canadian air mass dubbed the Alberta Clipper numbed the northern Plains Wednesday with single-digit temperatures and threatened to drop wind chills as low as 50 below zero in the Great Lakes tonight.
Snow fell early today in Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey, and northern Georgia was glazed with rain, sleet and up to 9 inches of snow in Cornelia.
National Airport in Washington was shut down briefly as crews worked to remove snow from runways, and Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta was closed.
Federal workers in and around the nation's capital were asked to report on time but the Office of Personnel Management later issued an early dismissal policy that would allow workers in Virginia to leave work at 10:30 a.m. and those in Washington and Maryland to leave at 11:30 a.m.
The snow prompted officials in North Carolina at the Greensboro Kidney Center to ask residents with four-wheel-drive vehicles to help transport patients in need of dialysis.
'We have a lot of folks who can't get in because of the snow,' said Dr. Jim Detterding, who estimated about 50 patients are in need of the life-saving treatment. All who needed rides apparently got them, he said.
Authorities in Bibb County, Ala., requested assistance from the National Guard to transport nurses to nursing homes for shift changes.
Other snowfall amounts from the storm totaled 14 inches in Surry and Yadkin counties of North Carolina, and 12 inches at Hickory, N.C., where 3 inches fell in one hour early today. Athens, Ga., picked up 8 inches of snow, and 7 inches fell in Roanoke, Va.
Greenville County, S.C., was hit with up 8 inches of snow, while 5 inches fell in Spartanburg, S.C., forcing officials to close the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport.
Widespread power outages were reported over upstate South Carolina, northern Georgia and across Alabama, where up to 6 inches of snow fell in Ashland and Lineville. Major interstates in Birmingham and Jefferson County, Ala., were closed by the heavy snow.
'Up North, they get 2 to 3 inches and it's not a big problem,' said Hugh Atkins, Floyd County civil defense director in Rome, Ga. 'Down here, we can have an inch and it just about paralyzes us. It comes down as snow and then turns to ice on the roads.'
A bridge spanning the Mississippi River northwest of New Orleans was closed for several hours early today due to icing.
'We got people slipping and sliding all over the place,' said Sgt. Bill Thomas of the Louisiana State Police.
Many schools were closed because of the storm in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, suburban Washington, D.C., the Carolinas and Virginia, where up to 7 inches of snow fell in higher elevations in the western part of the state.
In Hopewell, about 25 miles southeast of Richmond, highway engineers had a hard time coping with the rapid snowfall.
'We were ready to go but so much came in so fast,' said Hank Wilde, a highway maintenance and operations worker.
Dianna Vickers, manager at Kroger grocery in Atlanta, said the store was crowded with shoppers stocking up on supplies Wednesday.
'It was extremely busy,' she said. 'People were saying they had to stock up. People panicked.'
The snow was expected to spread north along the East Coast as the Midwestern cold air combines with the Southern storm.
Up to a foot of snow was predicted for eastern New York, where Joe Delefano, manager of the Price Chopper supermarket outside Albany, said his supply of rock salt was cleaned out.
'We had to call people in because we got rushed,' Delefano said. 'You can plan on the crowds. They more or less come in to get the staple items.'
Snow also stretched today from the Great Lakes to the lower Missouri Valley, and snow squalls were predicted in Wisconsin and Michigan. Some areas of the upper Great Lakes region had already received up to 6 inches of snow.
The storm in the South today dumped heavy snow in the Southwest this week and prompted Navajo tribal officials to declare a state of emergency for some portions of the Indian reservation in northeastern Arizona.
An estimated 500 families were snowbound on the Navajo reservation about 150 miles northwest of Albuquerque, N.M., and hundreds of others were cut off by snow drifts up to 7 feet high, but state police in Santa Fe said all persons who were isolated had been reached.
The latest storm that moved out of the Southwest followed a storm that swept the Rockies a week ago and ripped across the country, killing 46 people in 14 states.
