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WEATHER
National Weather Service

Wintry band of ice, snow crawls up East Coast

Doug Stanglin
USA TODAY
Kennesaw University student Thomas Grey swings at a snowball as snow falls, Feb. 25, 2015, in Kennesaw, Ga.

A harsh winter storm that brought parts of northern Alabama to a near standstill under almost a foot of snow delivered a wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain up the mid-Atlantic coast to Washington, D.C., Thursday morning.

Overall, about 216,000 customers were without power from Alabama to Virginia early Thursday morning, the Weather Channel reported.

Much of north Alabama was essentially shut down because of dangerous travel conditions from the snow and slush.

Parts of the state staggered under more than 10 inches of heavy, wet snow, causing tree damage and power outages. Weather stations reported around 11.5 inches of snow in the Grant area; and about 11 inches in the Hartselle and Guntersville areas.

"I think we're the only place in Grant open today," said Mandy Hall, manager of the Grant Pharmacy. "Well, actually, someone sent an SUV to pick me up at my house to get to work. "

"There are no cars on the street just 4-wheel drive cars and trucks packed with people," she said. "We aren't that busy. A few people have come in with their kids for essentials like gloves -- they said they were going to go build a snowman."

In Huntsville, Ala., a worker at a Waffle House -- one of the only eateries in the area that opened -- says the cafe reserved hotel rooms for the staff nearby.

"We have rotating shifts," she said. "Most of the other cafes are closed, but we are very busy. The main roads are pretty cleared, but there are people with SUVs picking up people from small uncleared roads to bring them to their nearest Waffle House."

It was Huntsville's 4th-heaviest snowstorm on record, with 8.2 inches of snow, the Weather Channel said.

For the second time in a week, drivers spent the night in their vehicles in northern Alabama stuck on snowy Interstate 65 north of Birmingham, the Weather Channel said.

As of mid-morning Thursday, some of the other top snowfall totals by state include 10 inches in Conway, N.C.; 9.5 inches in Troy, Miss.; 9 inches in Townsend, Tenn.; and 8.5 inches in Poquoson, Va., according to the National Weather Service.

In Tupelo, Miss., the 7.3 inches of snow that fell there Wednesday made it the city's 2nd-biggest calendar-day snow on record, topped only by the 8 inches from Jan. 24, 1940, the weather service said.

In North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham area, more than 150,000 customers lost power overnight after trees, heavy laden with wet snow, fell on electrical lines, according to newsobserver.com.

The weather service reported more than 6 inches of snow overnight in Wake County, 7 inches in Durant and 9 inches near Graham, in Alamance County.

Duke University canceled Thursday classes and UNC-Chapel Hill called off classes through Friday.

Officials in Georgia, trying to avoid last year's freeway paralysis in Atlanta, convinced most commuters to stay off the roads until the storm passed.

"I believe the lesson we are learning even of this morning as we noted the smaller volume of traffic on the interstates is that the public is willing to be a participating partner," said Gov. Nathan Deal, who closed government offices at noon and urged businesses to send workers home early.

Georgia was so focused on hunkering down that it even delayed the execution of its only female death row inmate because of the approaching winter weather. Husband-killer Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, had been scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Wednesday.The execution has been rescheduled for Monday.

As temperatures begin to warm to the south, residents can expect sleet and freezing rain. In Florida, the trailing cold front could cause showers and thunderstorms, the weather service said.

According to the weather service, the sudden blast of winter in the South started with a surface low spinning in the northern Gulf of Mexico that caused warm, moist air to surge northward, fueling widespread precipitation, which came down as a thick blanket of snow in the cold arctic air.

As it crept up the Atlantic Seaboard, the storm brought early morning snow as far north as Washington, D.C., complicating the morning commute and prompting the government to delay opening federal offices by two hours. Many school systems in the D.C. area were shut down for the day.

The storm is expected to race north toward the Canadian Maritimes Thursday afternoon, but not before clipping coastal New England with just what residents there do not need — more snow.

Another piece of the storm dubbed Remus is bringing snow to parts of the Midwest, according to The Weather Channel.

Contributing: Dominique Bonessi, in McLean, Va.;The Associated Press, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

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