A late winter storm landed a final punch on the US mid-Atlantic states on Monday, dumping more than a foot of snow in some places, shutting schools and federal offices and cancelling flights.
Traditional green worn on St. Patrick’s Day was hidden under the winter coats of children enjoying one more sledding day and of road crews manning plows ahead of the official start of spring on Thursday.
No change in the cold weather in the eastern United States is likely for the next week, said meteorologist Brian Korty of the National Weather Service.
“You’re going to see oscillations in the temperature but I think on the whole the temperature is still going to probably stay below average,” he said.
He said a few snow flurries would linger until the afternoon, but the storm that hit Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey had largely moved out to sea.
The storm dumped 7 inches of snow on Washington, the second-heaviest snowfall the capital has recorded this late in the season, Korty said.
Hundreds of thousands of federal government employees were ordered to stay home in the Washington area. Schools, colleges and local governments shut throughout the affected region.
An intercity commercial bus with 58 passengers aboard veered off the snowy Interstate 95 highway about 30 miles south of Washington early on Monday and flipped onto its side, Virginia State Police said in a statement.
