(Reuters) – The first major winter storm of the new year swept into the U.S. Middle Atlantic states on Monday morning, closing down federal offices and public schools in Washington D.C. after dumping more than a foot of snow in the Ohio Valley and Central Plains.
The nation’s capital can expect accumulations of 6 to 9 inches before the system pushes out to sea on Monday evening, the U.S. National Weather Service said.
Governors in several states, including Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia and Virginia, have already declared states of emergency.
In the wake of the storm, frigid Arctic air was filling the void, bringing freezing rain and icy conditions to a swath of the country stretching from Illinois through Maryland and Virginia. Treacherous driving conditions are expected in many areas.
The Central Plains, where the storm dumped heavy snow over the weekend, were already in a deep freeze. Parts of Kansas experienced bitter cold wind chills, with values from 5 to almost 25 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (minus 15 to 32 degrees Celsius) overnight. The cold air will persist, with daytime highs only in the mid teens to lower 20s.
In Washington, the storm will not keep the U.S. Congress from meeting on Monday to formally certify Republican Donald Trump’s election as president, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday. But federal offices in the nation’s capital will be closed, the Office of Personnel Management said.
Hundreds of schools announced in advance that they would not open on Monday due to the storm, including public schools in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Washington and Philadelphia.
The winter storm also left more than a quarter million homes and businesses in central and the southern U.S. without power on Monday, data from PowerOutage.us showed.
As of 8 a.m. EST, some 1,450 flights into and out of the United States were canceled and more than 11,000 delayed, according to the Flightaware.com tracking service, with airports in New York, Chicago and Washington most affected.
(Reporting By Frank McGurty; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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