NEW YORK, Jan 31 (APP): Warning of a major winter storm were in place for a large part of the Eastern United States on Sunday night, from northwestern North Carolina to New York, with as much as two feet of snow and dangerous travel conditions expected in some places into Tuesday, forecasters said.
The storm brought snow and rain to California last week before moving through the Midwest, leaving about eight inches of snow in Chicago, the National Weather Service said.
“It’s pushing eastward and it’s starting to snow into the Mid-Atlantic up into the Northeast, and we do anticipate a pretty broad area of potentially heavy snows,” Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service who is based in Baltimore, told The New York Times.
Snow was expected in major metropolitan areas, from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, as well inland across northeastern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and most of New England, Oravec was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said that it headquarters in New York was expected to be closed on Monday due to the weather conditions. Travel would also likely be affected, the National Weather Service said.
It is a “relatively slow-moving storm,” Qravec said, but the expected snowfall is average for a winter storm this time of year.
In New York, 12 to 18 inches of snow were expected for much of the Tristate region, the National Weather Service said, with up to 24 inches possible in some places. Near blizzard-like conditions were possible along the coast on Monday.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in-person schools would be closed on Monday because of the snowstorm.
A warning issued for the Washington metropolitan area and Baltimore predicted up to nine inches of snow in some places. The expected snowfall would break 709 days without more than an inch of snow recorded at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Oravec said.
In Pennsylvania, forecasters said travel could be impossible and predicted 11 to 15 inches of snow in places. Some areas in central, northern and northwestern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania could receive up to 18 inches of snow, with winds of up to 35 m.p.h.
Freezing rain was also likely in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, the National Weather Service said.
