DES MOINES, Iowa — A fierce winter storm hammered more than a dozen states Tuesday with dangerous ice, heavy snow and vicious winds that threatened to create 15-foot drifts in parts of the Upper Midwest.
As much as two-thirds of the country will be affected by the storm by the time it moves off the Maine coast Thursday night, said Jim Lee, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines. “It’s a monster of a storm.”
After drenching California with rain and blanketing the mountain West, the storm was expected to bring significant snowfall and blizzard conditions to the Great Lakes.
Wind advisories and warnings were in effect from New Mexico to the Mid-Atlantic states, with flooding in the south. Winter-storm warnings were likely to be issued in New England by today.
A foot or more of snow was expected in parts of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, and wind gusts of up to 50 mph could create snow drifts of 8 to 15 feet.
In rural New York near the Great Lakes, where more than 3 feet of snow was expected by week’s end, meteorologists urged residents to deflate blow-up Santas so gusty winds didn’t sweep them away.
The storm also brought 100-mph winds to New Mexico, where powerful gusts ripped away the roof of the White Sands Missile Range’s police station.
At least five deaths were blamed on the weather, including a hunter in northern Arizona who died Monday night when the top of a pine tree snapped off and crushed him as he slept in a tent and driver whose vehicle plunged 90 feet off an icy road into the Texas Panhandle’s Palo Duro Canyon.
