LITTLE ROCK — A powerful winter storm system pounded the nation’s midsection Wednesday and headed toward the Northeast, where people braced for the high winds and heavy snow that disrupted holiday travel, knocked out power to thousands of homes and were blamed in at least six deaths.
Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts, and blizzard warnings were issued amid snowy gusts of 30 mph that covered roads and windshields, at times causing whiteout conditions.
“The way I’ve been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that’s sort of like saying a small Tyranno-saurus rex,” said John Kwiatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
The system, which spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day and a historic amount of snow in Arkansas, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and headed toward the Northeast. Forecasts called for 12 to 18 inches of snow inland from western New York to Maine starting late Wednesday and into today and tapering off into a mix of rain and snow closer to the coast, where little accumulation was expected in such cities as New York and Boston.
The storm left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters also said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida would see severe thunderstorms.
Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, and others were implored to avoid traveling. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.
Some 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.
Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana.
The day after a holiday wasn’t expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.
Traffic crawled at 25 mph on Interstate 81 in Maryland, where authorities reported scores of accidents.
More than 1,200 flights were canceled by midday, according to FlightAware.com,and some airlines said they would waive change fees. Delays of more than an hour were reported Wednesday at the three New York City-area airports, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Duke Energy said it had nearly 300 power failures in Indiana, with a few left in Ohio by early afternoon after scores were reported in the morning.
As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more that was expected to start falling late Wednesday and through today.
“People are picking up salt and a lot of shovels today,” said Andy Greenwood, an assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in Keene, N.H.
As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of skiing trails.
“We watch the weather more carefully for crosscountry skiing than we do for farming. And we’re pretty diligent about farming. We’re glued to the weather radio,” said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in “CrackerJacks - we don’t know what we’re going to get.”
The track of the storm will spare the large East Coast cities from Philadelphia to Boston any significant snowfall, said Gary Best, a meteorologist with Hometown Forecast Services Inc. in Nashua, N.H.
“If it was farther south and east, the big cities would get walloped by snow,” Best said. “The farther west and north of the track you go, that is where there will be doubledigit snowfall amounts.”
Syracuse, N.Y., may receive as much as 13 inches of snow by today and Erie, Pa., may get 17 inches, according to the weather service. Snow falling in Cleveland on Wednesdaycut visibility to about half a mile, according to the weather service.
“The worst of the storm is going to be in a swath from northern Ohio through western New York and northern New England,” said Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pa. “That is the area that is probably getting a foot, maybe more.”
Western Massachusetts and Vermont may get 10 to 14 inches of snow and the ski areas of New Hampshire and Maine may get as much 18 inches, according to the weather service.
“The ski areas are going to love it, this is great news for them,” Kines said.
In Canada, Toronto is forecast to receive about 4 inches of snow and parts of southern Ontario as much as 6 inches, according to Environment Canada.
A winter storm warning has been issued for southern Quebec, where Montreal and the Eastern Townships may get as much as 10 inches, the agency said.
Behind the storm, Mississippi’s governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.
Cindy Williams, 56, stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family membershad escaped harm.
“We are so thankful,” she said.
“God took care of us.” Information for this article was contributed by Dan Sewell, Rick Callahan, Charles Wilson, Kelly P. Kissel, Jim Van Anglen, Holbrook Mohr, Julie Carr Smyth, Mitch Stacy, Amanda Lee Myers, David Dishneau, Holly Ramer and David Sharp of The Associated Press and by Brian K. Sullivan, Jim Polson and Mary Jane Credeur of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/27/2012