45 cars crash on Indiana highway due to icy road surface
Indiana State Police reported that 45 vehicles were involved in a pileup crash on Interstate 70, but there were no major injuries.
The first winter storm of the season is expected to arrive in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region on Dec. 2, bringing dangerous road conditions with “heavy snow and significant icing,” forecasters said.
In total, more than 45 million Americans were under winter weather warnings in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and West. States from Kentucky and North Carolina to New York, Massachusetts and Maine were subject to the advisory. Winter storm warnings were issued for about 5 million people in parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine.
A snowstorm system that is dumping a wintry mix on the Ohio Valley is moving into the Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic, and the snowstorm is moving from the upper Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes and into interior New England, the National Weather Service announced.
The storm is expected to produce heavy snowfall of more than 1 inch per hour on December 2, the weather service said. Snow amounts could approach or exceed a foot in some places, and freezing rain could make roads icy and slippery in some places.
Another round of wintry weather blanketed parts of the Midwest, bringing mountain snow to the Rocky Mountains and icy conditions to eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
The winter weather arrived days after the storm dumped a foot of snow on parts of the Midwest and angered post-Thanksgiving travelers in cities like Chicago.
“Winter storms will hit the Midwest and Great Lakes this week, potentially creating more travel headaches,” said Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s vice president of forecasting operations.
How much snow does it snow?
Parts of New England and the northern Mid-Atlantic are expected to receive 5 to 10 inches of snow on December 2, with some areas expected to receive more than a foot of snow, the weather service said.
Freezing rain in the south-central Appalachians could cause 0.1 to 0.2 inches of ice to form on roads, forecasters said. Bridges and overpasses are especially at risk from ice.
A second winter storm is expected to form over the weekend, bringing the potential for more snow to the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes and parts of the Northeast, AccuWeather said.
More winter weather expected to arrive by midweek
According to AccuWeather, states in the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region are expected to experience a cold front from Canada on the night of Dec. 3 and into Dec. 4, resulting in temperatures 15 to 20 degrees below normal for this time of year.
Temperatures in Minneapolis and Chicago are expected to be in the teens, but will feel closer to the single digits, the paper said.
““This front could be accompanied by squalls, which could cause rapid visibility declines, quickly cover roads and make travel dangerous,” Depodwin said.
AccuWeather reports that more arctic air from the displacement of the polar vortex, a huge circular region of cold air high in the atmosphere that usually rotates above the North Pole, will flow in in the coming weeks.
Contributor: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
