Flight cancellations piled up and state officials warned of continuing dangerous roads Saturday in the wake of a winter storm that closed schools and disrupted travel across parts of the southern US.
A storm that brought biting cold and wet snow to the south was moving out to sea off the east coast Saturday, leaving behind a forecast of snow showers in the Appalachian mountains and New England. But temperatures are expected to plunge after sundown Saturday in the south, raising the risk that melting snow will refreeze, turning roadways treacherous and glazed with ice.
“I definitely don’t think everything’s going to completely melt,” said Scott Carroll, a National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist in Atlanta. “Especially the secondary roads will probably still have some slush on them.”
Major roads were mostly clear, but few ventured out early Saturday. The Atlanta Hawks postponed the pro basketball game they were supposed to host Saturday afternoon against the Houston Rockets, citing icy conditions.
Major airports including Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, continued to report disruptions Saturday. While flights were operating, airlines canceled and delayed more flights after Friday’s weather slowed airline travel to a crawl. By noon Saturday, more than 300 flights in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airport had been canceled, while nearly 500 more had been delayed, according to tracking software FlightAware. More than 200 flights in and out of Charlotte had been canceled, while almost 200 more ran late.
Delta Air Lines, the largest carrier at the Atlanta airport, said late Friday that it was “working to recover” on Saturday, saying cancellations would be worst among morning flights because of crews and airplanes that weren’t where they were supposed to be after the airline canceled 1,100 flights on Friday.
Meanwhile, the city of Richmond, Virginia, lifted its boil-water advisory late Saturday morning, nearly a week after Monday’s snowstorm cut power and caused a malfunction to the city’s water system.
The mayor, Danny Avula, said lab tests confirmed that Richmond’s water was safe to drink, adding that boil-water advisories had been lifted for some surrounding counties as well.
The temporary halting of the water system affected more than 200,000 people, some of whom lacked water in their homes because of diminished pressure. The state’s legislature had also delayed the beginning of its session because of the problem.
Freezing rain pushed up electricity outages above 110,000 customers in Georgia on Friday night, but most power had been restored Saturday. The NWS reported 0.1-0.25in (0.25-0.6cm) of ice accumulation around Atlanta from the freezing rain, which wasn’t as bad as had been forecast. But Carroll of the NWS said high winds Saturday could still pose risks where ice did stick.
Parts of mountainous western North Carolina saw as much as 4.5in (about 11cm) of snow in a 24-hour period that ended at 7am Saturday, according to the NWS. And parts of middle Tennessee saw nearly 6in (about 15cm) of snow by Saturday morning.
Earlier this week, the storm brought heavy snow and slick roads to much of Texas and Oklahoma before moving east. Arkansas and North Carolina mobilized national guard troops for tasks such as helping stranded motorists, and governors declared states of emergency.
School was canceled on Friday for millions of children from Texas to Georgia and as far east as South Carolina, giving them a rare snow day. Officials in northern Alabama on Saturday said schools could remain closed Monday if ice didn’t melt off secondary roads.
The storm piled up more than a year’s worth of snowfall on some cities, including Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee.
The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the north pole, but it sometimes ventures south into the US, Europe and Asia. Some experts say such events are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world.
The cold snap coincided with rare January wildfires tearing through the Los Angeles area.
