WASHINGTON (Eagle News) — Students set to return to school campuses on the first Monday of the new year were instead greeted with cancellation notices as heavy snow dropped on many parts of the U.S. east coast extending the winter break of many.
According to the National Weather Service (NWS), a dynamic low pressure system will fuel significant weather impacts across parts of the Southeast coast and Mid-Atlantic over the next few days.
Rain turned into snow over much of the Washington DC region Monday morning. Many residents of the nation’s capital stared out their windows to take in the view of the year’s first snowfall.
The NWS predicted between 4-8 inches of snow to fall from the Southern Appalachians through Washington DC and into southern New Jersey by Monday evening.
The weather service said localized higher amounts between 8-12 inches are possible with the heaviest snow to fall at a rate of two inches an hour.
The weather condition made for tricky commutes for those who still had to go into work.
Local commutes were not the only ones affected by heavy snow and rainfall. Airline travelers were left waiting for hours at airports throughout the country as inclement weather disrupted scheduled flights.
Nearly 3,500 flights Monday, the first workday of 2022, were already cancelled as of 9:45 am (1445 GMT), including 2,000 US flights or international ones starting or finishing in the United States, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.
These cancellations were in addition to the 2,700 US flights cancelled Sunday and 2,750 grounded on Saturday.
(Eagle News Service)