News

A once-in-a-lifetime blizzard, packing hurricane-force winds, brought much of the East Coast to a crippling halt Saturday, dumping an upwards of 3 feet of snow, stranding tens of thousands of travelers and shutting down Washington, D.C. and New York City.

At least 18 deaths were blamed on weather-related incidents, including car crashes, snow-shoveling mishaps and hypothermia. However, most of the 80 million people in the storm’s path heeded requests to stay home and off the roadways. Snow is expected to persist until early Sunday, forecasters warned.

"This is going to be one of those generational events, where your parents talk about how bad it was," Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, said from Tallahassee, Florida, which also saw some flakes.

The blizzard dropped snow on states from the Gulf Coast all the way up to New England and by Saturday afternoon some areas around Washington had reported receiving up to 30 inches, while the heaviest report came from a rural area of West Virginia with 40 inches.

As the storm ramped up, forecasters increased their snow predictions for New York and warned areas as far north as Boston to gear up for some wicked weather.