The first winter storm of the season is underway for New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions on Dec. 2, with "heavy snow and impactful icing" expected to spell hazardous road conditions, forecasters said.
A total of more than 45 million Americans were under winter weather advisories in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and the western part of the country. States from Kentucky and North Carolina all the way up through New York, Massachusetts and Maine were blanketed by the advisories. Nearly 5 million people in parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine were under a winter storm warning.
A snowy storm system that has been dumping a wintry mix on the Ohio Valley was making its way into the Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic, with snow showers shifting from the Upper Ohio Valley and Great Lakes shifting to the interior New England region, the National Weather Service said.
The storm system will bring periods of heavy snow at a rate of more than 1 inch per hour on Dec. 2, the weather service said. Snow could total near or over a foot in some places, with freezing rain making the roads icy and slick in others.
Another pocket of winter weather was covering parts of the central and western United States, bringing mountain snow to the Rockies and icy conditions to eastern Washington, northern Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
