Snowstorm hits north-central U.S., heads to mid-Atlantic

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - A blizzard roared into North Dakota on Monday and was expected to dump up to a foot of snow in neighboring Minnesota before moving east over the mid-Atlantic states, where it could bury the Washington area with its biggest snowfall of the winter, the National Weather Service said.

Blowing snow and drifts up to three feet (0.9 meter) left parts of Montana and the northwest North Dakota oil region with visibility at a quarter of mile under blizzard conditions that were expected to last into Monday night, the weather service said.

The North Dakota transportation department was recommending "no travel" on roads across the northwestern part of the state where there is a blizzard, stretching along the northern edge of the state across to roads north of Grand Forks.

Up to 15 inches of snow was expected in northwestern North Dakota and 9 inches in the Grand Forks area, on the eastern border with Minnesota. But the state took the latest storm in stride.

"It's a normal late winter storm for us," said Adam Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area was dusted by an inch or two of snow on Monday from a separate storm system, and up to 10 inches was expected from the main winter storm, mostly overnight into Tuesday morning, the weather service said.

The storm was expected to dump heavy snow along the Minnesota and Wisconsin border, with up to a foot in the far southeastern corner of Minnesota, before heading across southern Wisconsin and into Illinois.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had 107 flight cancellations on Monday and O'Hare International Airport had 65, FlightAware.com reported.

Overall, the storm was expected to stretch across North Dakota, much of Minnesota, northern Iowa, western Wisconsin and then into northern Illinois.

Northeastern Illinois, including Chicago, was forecast to receive 6 to 10 inches of snow overall, starting late Monday and spanning the morning and more intensely the evening rush hours.

The snow was expected to become more intense toward Tuesday morning with the heaviest accumulations during the day on Tuesday, the weather service said.

The storm was forecast to move east, reaching the Ohio Valley, the mid-Atlantic states and the Washington area later on Tuesday and into Wednesday.

"This will be certainly the biggest snowstorm for the winter in this area," said National Weather Service forecaster Bruce Sullivan, who is in Maryland.

Forecasts suggested the system could dump 8 to 14 inches of snow over parts of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the National Weather Service said.

It will bring a cold, dry snow over the mountains of Virginia and a heavy, wet snow east of Washington, he said.

One of the more challenging aspects is predicting how much snow would fall on or east of heavily traveled Interstate 95 in Virginia and Maryland, forecasters said.

"We are into March now. It may start out as a little bit of rain and just how quickly it changes into snow will impact how much we get," Sullivan said.

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Vicki Allen, Philip Barbara, Richard Chang and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowstorm-hits-north-central-u-heads-mid-atlantic-014909046.html

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