USA - December 20th, 2009
A massive winter storm that dumped record amounts of snow in the east of the US is now slowly making its way toward the north-east, still shutting airports and closing roads. In Washington DC and New York airports have reopened and roads are being cleared, but authorities report it will be days before things return to normal.
The storm, which began with severe flooding and a tornado in Florida, has covered Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York with a blanket of snow smashing a 70-year-old records. The 33 centimetres of snow that fell in Washington, D.C., by late afternoon was the most ever recorded for a day in December.
The blizzard rocked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States on Saturday, crippling travel across the region and causing hundreds of thousands of power outages. Five deaths appeared to have been caused by the storm system, which stretched from the Carolinas north to New England and spread into some Midwestern states.
Here, snow can be seen covering parts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Forecasters said the storm system was expected to generate winds up to 55 km/h, which could cause near-whiteout conditions. Authorities in many areas asked drivers to stay off the roads if possible. The storm system, coming from the Gulf of Mexico and spreading out across much of the Atlantic coastline, was forecast to bring a mix of snow and freezing rain to North Carolina, Tennessee and parts of western and central Virginia.
