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2010-01-31 05:53:24 - Snow Storm - USA EDIS CODE: SS-20100131-24747-USA
Date & Time: 2010-01-31 05:53:24 [UTC]
Area: USA, State of Virginia, Virginia-wide, Damage level: Moderate (Level 2)
Not confirmed information! Description: Snow paralyzed transportation in Virginia yesterday. And it's likely to stay frozen for a while. "It might be Tuesday before we get into neighborhood roads" to plow deep snow that fell on the Old Dominion yesterday, said Britt Drewes, a Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman. "We're going to work as fast as we can." Area snowfall yesterday reached 14 inches in Henrico County's Lakeside, 13 inches in Short Pump, 12.8 inches in Studley in Hanover County, 11.4 inches in Richmond, 11 inches in Chesterfield County and 9.5 inches at Richmond International Airport, the National Weather Service said. Across the state, unusually high snowfalls included 9 inches in Virginia Beach. From one end to the other, snow buried the state. Snowfall rates of an inch an hour were common during the storm that tapered by evening, the weather service said.
"For Virginia, for the entire state to get snow is relatively unusual," said meteorologist Larry Brown with the Wakefield Weather Forecast Office. If the weather is cold enough to produce snow in Hampton Roads, most storms are not also large enough to engulf Northern Virginia as well, he said. The weather in central Virginia today and tomorrow will be frigid; later in the week, temperatures will stay below freezing at night and struggle only into the 40s by day as cold high pressure builds into the area. "Certainly through Wednesday, the amount of melting you're going to see is minimal," Brown said. Without warmer weather to melt the snow, street and road snow-removal crews will have to work longer. "It's going to make our job harder," Drewes said. And, she said, "we're going to be more concerned about black ice forming" as roads refreeze after sundown. The storm caused hundreds of auto accidents, interrupted electric service, slowed traffic to a crawl, canceled almost all flights at Richmond International Airport, stopped every bus running through Richmond's Greyhound terminal -- stranding about 160 passengers -- and halted most of Amtrak's passenger-rail service in Virginia.
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