Northeast residents were urged to stay off the roads with temperatures beginning to drop Friday evening as a major winter storm turned already slippery roads and sidewalks into ice-covered hazards.
The storm spread misery from the Deep South, where tree limbs snapped and a tornado claimed a life, to the nation’s northeastern tip where snow and ice made travel treacherous Friday.
Massachusetts State Police responded to more than 200 crashes with property damage or injuries, including one fatal crash, starting Thursday evening, officials said. New Hampshire State Police reported at least 70 crashes Friday morning.
“This number is most definitely low because reports are still being written and entered,” state police in Massachusetts tweeted.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned residents as the snow blows out to sea late Friday and Saturday to stay home if possible to avoid ice-coated roadways and the threat of falling tree limbs in the Hudson Valley and Capital regions.
“We’re not out of the danger zone yet,” Hochul said. “The weather is wildly unpredictable.”
More than a foot of snow fell in parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New England. Utility crews were making progress in an area stretching from Texas to Ohio after about 350,000 homes and businesses were in the dark at one point.
One of the hardest-hit places was Memphis, where more than 115,000 customers remained without power Friday evening in Shelby County alone, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
The storm represented a “highly energized system” with waves of low pressure riding along like a train from Texas, where there was snowfall and subfreezing temperatures, to Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, said Hunter Tubbs, meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Maine.
Airlines scrubbed about 3,400 flights by midday Friday, with the highest numbers of cancellations at Dallas-Fort Worth and airports in the New York City area and Boston, according to tracking service FlightAware.
In New England, some places welcomed the winter weather, which was a boon for skiers and snowmobilers.
In Vermont, no one was complaining at the Stowe Mountain Resort where skiers and snowboarders reported some of the best conditions of the season, with more than 10 inches of snow overnight, and snow continuing to fall.
“We’re just having a blast, the sauce is flowing,” said Jared Marshall, of Denmark, Maine, a member of the ski team of New London’s Colby-Sawyer College in town for a ski meet.