Wintry Weather Halts Over 1,200 Flights as Storm Pulls Away

(Bloomberg) -- More than 1,200 flights were canceled around the US Sunday as a powerful winter storm that dropped upwards to a foot of snow in many areas pulls out to sea while the East Coast and South remain gripped by a deep freeze causing at least one utlity to ask residents to conserve.

Snow will taper off around noon across most of North Carolina, where upwards of 14 inches (36 centimeters) fell inland and many areas along the coast reported as much as 12 inches, the National Weather Service said. 

The storm will deepen offshore, where it may generate hurricane-strength winds far out to sea. While it may bring wind gusts as high as 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour to eastern Massachusetts, the Northeast will miss the worst of the weather. 

“It’s far enough offshore that it won’t have a tremendous impact,” said Rich Otto, a forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.

The eastern US has been hit by two large winter storms and crippling cold in as many weeks, testing power grids as demand for heating rises and ice knocks out power to thousands. Heavy snow and frigid temperatures are behind some of the flight cancellations. 

Duke Energy has asked customers in the Carolinas to reduce energy demand from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday in a hope temporary power outages can be avoided, according to a company statement. Thermostats should be turned to the lowest comfortable settings, large appliances such as washing machines and dish washers shouldn’t be run and electric vehicle owners should delay recharging until midday hours. 

Nearly 178,000 homes and businesses, mainly across Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida and Louisiana, were without power, according to PowerOutage.com. Many of those areas have been without power since an ice storm knocked down transmission lines last week. 

The cold has sunk so far south that it’s threatened Florida’s lucrative citrus crops. Snow was reported earlier on Sunday in Tampa, Florida, while almost the entire state has been under an extreme cold warning. The temperature was 36F (2C) in Miami at 6 a.m. local time. 

Across the US, 1,289 flights had been canceled as of 10:30 a.m. New York time, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking company. Charlotte Douglas International Airport was the hardest hit, with 809 inbound and outbound trips scrubbed. On Saturday, nearly 2,500 flights were scrapped around the US.

Otto said temperatures across the eastern US will moderate slightly in the coming week, but remain well below normal.

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