First Winter Storm Brings Snow and Ice

First winter storm brings snow and ice in the Northeast keeping people in their homes and pushing drivers off the roads.

Associated Press reports sub-freezing temperatures and from 4 to 6 inches of snow across southern Maine. According to Mike Kistner from the National Weather Service reporting from Gray, Maine, in the north there were expected 8 to 12 inches of snow before the night came.

Two interstates were partially closed on Tuesday in Missouri as a result of an unusual winter flood which threatened hundreds of houses. The huge volume of water caused the sewage to flow into the waterways unfiltered.

In some parts of Illinois and Missouri rivers have swollen to unprecedented levels as a result of the torrential rains from the last few days. More towns across Mississippi River are expecting record flooding and the water levels of the Meramec River are expected to get over 3 feet more than the previous record by the end of the week in the area of St. Louis.

The flooding has already caused 18 deaths in both Illinois and Missouri. Most of them were drivers who drove onto flooded roads.

The bad weather has also affected some parts of metro Boston which is still recovering from the record-breaking snowfall of last winter.

The storm also got to Vermont but residents of the state were actually enjoying the recovering sense of normal.

According to Kistner the storm in the Northeast is part of the same system which brought tornadoes in the Midwest on Saturday and then moved to the Great Lakes leaving ice, rain, heavy snow and flooding on its way. Many people were killed by the storm system – some of them being caught up in tornadoes while others have drowned in floodwaters.

But the northeast storm is moving toward Cape Cod, Massachusetts and it is expected to blow out to the sea by the end of the week.

Forecast says that in southern New England snowfall will reach up to an inch while in the northern regions it could get to up to a foot. New Yorkers could see from 4 to 8 inches of snow.

The storm came to compensate the unusual warm weather with temperatures that reached record high earlier this month in the northeast. On Christmas Day temperatures in Maine topped 60 degrees. In other ears Portland would have had over a foot of snow by this time of the year. The first winter snow brings snow and ice to help the winter regain its rights.

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