Heavy snow has blanketed much of the central United States following a massive winter storm that left residents battling frigid temperatures and icy roads.

Some parts of Michigan and Ohio are expected to get up to a metre of snow as the system which has battered the country since Sunday makes its way northwards up into Canada.

"This one came roaring through, it came in off the west coast, started really getting put together in Utah and then just blasted across the plains," Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said on Thursday.

"As the system moves through, back behind it all this Arctic air came pouring south out of Canada and sweeping across the plains."

High winds were creating blizzard-like conditions even in areas where the snow had stopped falling by pulling snow drifts up off the ground, Slattery told AFP.

Those winds were also adding a bitter bite to the already freezing winter air, complicating efforts to dig out from under the heavy snow.

Wind chills were forecast to range from minus 26 to minus 34 degrees celsius from Wyoming to Wisconsin and even Iowa and Missouri for the next few days.

The biggest snowfalls - as much as 150 cm - were recorded in the mountainous areas of Colorado and Utah.

But 17 states from California to New Hampshire saw anywhere from 30 to 120 cm of snow and strong winds created drifts as high as 4.6 metres.

Schools were closed, hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of people lost power after strong winds brought down lines.

Major roads were completely blocked by the drifts and blowing snow, which defeated snow ploughs as the icy conditions made driving hazardous.

Cars and even big trucks were sliding off the road and getting stuck in ditches.

Stranded motorists were waiting at least a couple hours to be rescued during the height of the storm in Iowa, where the National Guard was called in to help after the state was blanketed with 22 to 41 cm of snow.

While most of the major streets and highways were cleared on Thursday, many rural residents remained trapped in their homes while waiting for the ploughs to clear back roads.

"It was a lot of snow. So today it's the aftermath, continuing to dig out for a lot of people," said Courtney Green, a spokeswoman for Iowa Department of Public Safety.

"Things are bitterly, bitterly cold. It's like the snow squeaks when you walk on it, it's that cold."

Americans pining for a white Christmas got more than they bargained for as a record-breaking snowstorm closed airports and roadways across the north-eastern United States, putting a damper on the holiday's biggest shopping weekend.

In Europe, heavy snow and ice also caused travel chaos, as tens of thousands of European travellers were stranded on Sunday in rail stations, traffic jams and airports.

Just days before the December 25 holiday, the eastern seaboard from North Carolina to New England in the US was digging out on Sunday from the worst blizzard in years, which closed train and bus service, paralysed air traffic and left hundreds of thousands of residents without power in some areas.

Many churches cancelled Sunday services, as local officials urged residents to hunker down indoors as record snowfall wreaked havoc on the roadways.

And the storm was a blow to the already reeling retail sector, which had been counting on cash registers loudly ringing on the Saturday before Christmas - traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year -- to make up for weeks of lackluster sales.

"I think we can safely say that sales in the Washington region were crippled," Ellen Davis, vice president of the National Retail Federation, told AFP.

She said the impact of the inclement weather went far beyond just making it harder for customers to snap up holiday gifts.

Without shoppers out and about at shopping malls and along America's high streets "people weren't eating at restaurants, there wasn't any impulse buying," Davis said.

With some $US15 billion of all nationwide sales occurring on the last weekend before Christmas, many shoppers trying to make up for lost time were likely to confront closes stores, unplowed roads and limited transportation options.

But Davis said the impact of the blizzard on Christmas shopping would be felt differently across the country, depending on when the storm hit.

While Washington, which received a total of 40 centimetres of snow, woke up on Saturday swathed in a deep white blanket under clear skies, the flakes were flying at the same time in New York and points north.

"What we heard in New York is that couple of flurries get people more in the spirit of shopping," Davis told AFP.

As the monster storm barrelled northward, the National Weather Service on Sunday posted blizzard warnings for southern New England, including Boston.

"Heavy snow and strong winds could potentially cause localized whiteout conditions along the New England coast through early Sunday afternoon," the NWS said, predicting "local amounts of up to two feet (61 centimetres) possible where heavy snow persists the longest".

The storm at one point stretched some 800 kilometres across a dozen states, affecting around a quarter of the US population.

Much of the East Coast, home to tens of millions of Americans, turned into a winter wonderland, even if the conditions were as perilous as they were scenic.

The NWS said it was the heaviest snow storm ever to hit the US capital region so early in December, in an area where snow does not usually fall until January or later, if at all.
Three people died on Virginia roads Saturday as some 3000 accidents shut down interstates for several hours, according to the state's department of emergency management. The Virginia Department of Health confirmed one other storm-related death.

And bus service around the region ground as road remained in many places slippery at best and in other places totally unplowed, making movement still difficult, hours after the storm had moved on.

"There are huge piles of snow lining the edges of streets and blocking the bus stops," said John Catoe, the general manager of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The transit authority also operates the area's regional subway system in Washington, Virginia and Maryland ran trains underground train service only, closing 39 of the system's 86 stations.

Service slowly returned to the capital region's main airports after hundreds of flights were cancelled on Saturday, stranding thousands of passengers on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

The annual year-end holiday travel season that official began Saturday, December 19 and continues through Saturday, January 2, just after the New Year's holiday.

Meanwhile, Davis said that resourceful shoppers, rather than deferring their holiday purchases, likely would make up for lost time this week in the last few shopping days before Christmas on Friday.

"You might see more people choose to purchase gift cards," she said. "I would imagine there were people online all day yesterday as opposed to being out" at the shopping malls, she said.

A "cold snap" ........... what constitutes a "chilly period" ?

Quote:



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/08/2787893.htm

Sorry skippy, I am not that smart gullible.

if there is global warming, should the globe be getting warmer?