Dec 2, 2007 9:41 pm US/Eastern
Severe Weather Blamed For At Least 10 Deaths
Storm Heads East After Walloping Midwest
DES MOINES, Iowa (CBS News) ―
A storm system slid across the Northeast with snow, sleet and freezing rain Sunday, glazing roads and tying up air travel after blacking out thousands of customers in the Midwest.
At least 10 traffic deaths have been blamed on weather-related traffic accidents.
Buffalo and parts of western New York got up to six inches of snow before changing to rain, reports CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano. But it was plenty for kids to make their first snowman of the winter.
In Pennsylvania, salt trucks were out in force. But snowy and icy conditions caught many motorists off guard.
The storm was expected to drop an inch or two of snow overnight in Boston with more west and north, according to Eleanor Vallier-Talbot, meteorologist with National Weather Service in Taunton.
"The main attraction won't be until tonight," she said. "The steadier stuff will get going after dark in the Connecticut Valley region around 9 p.m., reaching Boston after midnight."
The snow was expected to turn to rain Monday.
Winter storm warnings were in effect into Monday in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and into Tuesday in parts of New York state. On the other side of the weather system, warnings were issued for parts of Michigan, where freezing rain and sleet was predicted to turn to all snow late Sunday.
The National Weather Service said a foot of snow was possible in the mountains of northern New England, with the potential for 20 inches in northern Maine. In higher elevations of upstate New York, 13 inches of snow was possible. Lake-effect snow and high winds were forecast for parts of western New York.
"It's kind of a mess -- probably the best way to term it in one word," meteorologist Bob Kilpatrick said in Albany.
Three to 6 inches had fallen by Sunday afternoon in central New York state, and parts of New Jersey measured less than 3.
With snowfall that light in New Jersey, and a changeover to rain expected later Sunday in places, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority salted its roads Sunday and didn't bother to plow.
"Compared to what's happening in the Midwest, we've kind of got it easy right now," said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the authority.
Hundreds of flights into the New York City area's three main airports -- Kennedy, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia -- were delayed as long as two hours Sunday because of wind and ice.
The storm was the same one that blanketed the Midwest Saturday.
At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, ticket agents were busy this morning rebooking passengers after some 400 flights were cancelled yesterday, adds Solorzano.
Minnesota's Grand Marais, on Lake Superior's North Shore, got 20 inches of snow, and the port city of Duluth marked a Dec. 1 record of 10.3 inches, the Weather Service said.
Roads were already cleared Sunday in Grand Marais, said Jane Shinners, owner of the downtown Harbor Inn.
Utility companies in Illinois said the lights were back on for most of the nearly 140,000 customers who lost electricity Saturday as ice weighed down power lines. The ice also had blacked out more than 14,000 customers around Iowa, utilities reported.
Before the storm hit the Plains and Midwest, it had dumped up to 2 feet of snow in the mountains of western Colorado.
One member of the Purdue University ice hockey team was killed Saturday when a team van overturned on a slippery Indiana highway, school officials said. Seven others were injured.
Elsewhere, the weather was blamed for three deaths in Wisconsin, three in Michigan, and one each in North Dakota, Illinois and Colorado.
While the Midwest dug out and the Northeast braced itself, a separate storm raked the Oregon and Washington coasts with winds gusting higher than 100 mph in some spots. Officials warned of coastal flooding, and one sheriff reported 45-foot surf and power failures.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
