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Snow, ice blast through the South with powerful winter storm

Power outages, flight cancellations, slick roads make travel treacherous as system spans the South, heads toward Mid-Atlantic, southern New England.
Winter storm brings ice and snow to the Carolinas
Pedestrians cross a street in the snow on January 16, 2022 in Greenville, South Carolina. The winter storm brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to parts of the Carolinas and Georgia, where nearly 300,000 were left without power.Sean Rayford / Getty Images

A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice swept through parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous frigid glaze.

Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. More than an inch of snow fell per hour in some parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.

The storm was making air travel extremely difficult in some parts of the South. The nation’s hardest hit airport — Charlotte Douglas International — remained open around dawn Sunday, the airport said in a weather briefing. But more than 1,000 Sunday flights in Charlotte have been canceled — more than 80 percent of the airport’s Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com. Charlotte is a major hub in the South for American Airlines.

In Atlanta, where Delta Air Lines operates it main hub, more than 300 Sunday flights had been canceled.

Conditions were expected to continue to deteriorate through the evening Sunday, and ground stops were possible at airports in the Washington, D.C., area, the Federal Aviation Administration said in its air traffic control plan for Sunday.

Heavy snow was expected to extend from the Tennessee Valley, the central and southern Appalachians and parts of the Mid-Atlantic, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin Sunday. It added that there will be significant rain and freezing rain over parts of the Southeast.  

In Virginia, where a blizzard left thousands of motorists trapped on clogged highways earlier this month, outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and urged people to take the storm seriously. 

More emergency orders were issued in the Southeast as heavy snow and rain are expected early next week in the Tennessee and Ohio valleys and the Central/Southern Appalachians.

A winter storm warning was extended from Georgia to New York as a low pressure system that was expected to bring snow along the East Coast and in parts of the Midwest was expected to spread from the lower Tennessee Valley into the Carolinas and as far north as upstate New York and southern New England. 

Affected states responded to the weather predictions, with outgoing Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declaring states of emergency and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Gov. Henry McMaster of neighboring South Carolina issuing emergency orders. 

More than 8 inches of snowfall was expected from the Southern Appalachians up to western Virginia, according to the Weather Prediction Center.

Northeastern states may see 12 inches of snow Monday to Tuesday. As the storm moves, light snow will remain over parts of the Central/Southern Appalachians and northeast by Monday evening into Tuesday.

“This is going to be a pretty bad storm in the upper part of the state,” McMaster said. “The good news is, it’ll be coming on the weekend and holiday on Monday, so schools and offices will be closed. That’s good because there won’t be that many people on the roads and that’s good because we’re expecting a lot of ice on the roads.”