Winter weather is back: Snowstorm wallops West, heads for central, eastern U.S.
A potent winter storm that dumped heavy snow on the Rockies Monday will crawl toward the central and eastern U.S. throughout the rest of the week, forecasters say.
On Monday, the storm forced the closure of schools and roads in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, and it caused hourslong flight delays at Salt Lake City's airport. Many locations in Utah recorded more than a foot of snow Monday, the National Weather Service reported.
Several Utah school districts took the rare step of canceling classes. It was only the second snow day for the Salt Lake City School District in nearly 20 years.
In Denver, temperatures Monday afternoon were in the 20s as it snowed, a day after a sunny high of 74 degrees, AccuWeather said.
After moving away from the Rockies on Tuesday, the storm will produce a band of snow and ice from the southern Plains to the interior Northeast over the next few days, the National Weather Service said.
Tuesday night and into Wednesday, "several inches of snow is possible in a swath from northern Texas to southwestern Missouri," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Adam Sadvary.
The wintry weather will spread toward the southern Great Lakes, Pennsylvania, New York and parts of New England on Wednesday night and into Thursday, Weather.com said.
In the South, heavy rainfall, localized flooding and severe thunderstorms are forecast Tuesday through Thursday.
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"Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are forecast in a swath through Arkansas, the boot heel of Missouri, and into Kentucky and the Tennessee Valley through Wednesday evening," the weather service said. "There is some potential for flash flooding where heavy rainfall occurs in these areas."
Because of the wet start to the year, rainfall rates will not need to be exceptionally high to produce a flash flood risk, AccuWeather warned.
There is also a small risk of severe thunderstorms across portions of the lower Mississippi River valley on Tuesday, the Storm Prediction Center said, and along the Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
In the South and East on Monday, unusual warmth was the main weather story: According to BAM weather meteorologist Ryan Maue, nearly 50 million Americans saw temperatures of at least 70 degrees Monday afternoon.
"Can't beat that in early February, especially into St. Louis and Atlanta," Maue tweeted.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Weather forecast: Snow heads east; winter storm closes Utah schools
