Snow and freezing rain cause crashes in Virginia while California prepares for likely flooding

Heavy snow and freezing rain caused hundreds of crashes in Virginia and left tens of thousands of residents in the dark as the central Appalachians and parts of the mid-Atlantic states braced for heavy rains on Wednesday. Meanwhile, California readied for a storm that could flood areas ravaged by the recent wildfires.

The National Weather Service reported that 14.5 inches (36.8 centimeters) of snow fell over a 24-hour period in Iron Gate, Virginia, as of Tuesday night.

In California, an atmospheric river — a long band of water vapor that can transport moisture from the tropics to more northern areas — was expected to move in late Wednesday, likely flooding urban areas across central and Southern California, according to the weather service.

The snowstorm that blew into the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday caused accidents on icy roads and prompted school closures. By Wednesday morning, more than 93,000 customers in Virginia had lost power, according to PowerOutage.us.

In parts of Baltimore and Washington, an inch (2.5 centimeters) of snow was falling each hour, according to the weather service. The region’s airports received several inches of snow, according to Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist with the weather service's Weather Prediction Center.

“After a pretty quiet few seasons here, things have kind of picked back up again,” he said.

Most school systems in the Baltimore-Washington region were closed Wednesday due to the weather.

Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, said Tuesday it had 5,400 workers dedicated to restoring power.

Winter storm warnings and advisories stretched across the region, and the snow-and-ice mix was expected to become all rain by Wednesday afternoon as temperatures climb.

Meanwhile, a separate storm system was expected to dump heavy snow on an area stretching from Kansas to the Great Lakes, the weather service said. The Kansas Legislature canceled Wednesday meetings because of the weather, and Gov. Laura Kelly closed state offices in the capital, Topeka.

Hundreds of accidents

In Virginia, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency, state police reported about 850 crashes statewide Tuesday and up to Wednesday morning with dozens of injuries. Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Police, said they can't say definitively that all were weather related. No deaths were reported.

In southern West Virginia, multiple crashes temporarily shut down several major highways Tuesday. Smith’s Towing and Truck Repair responded to at least 15 calls, mostly from tractor-trailer drivers who got stuck on Interstate 64 in Greenbrier County near the Virginia border, dispatcher Kelly Pickles said.

“Basically they just get sucked over into the median or they go off of the interstate just a little bit on the right-hand side,” she said. “And they just don’t have enough power in their vehicles to get back onto the road due to the icy conditions.”

Bitter cold temperatures

An Arctic air mass stretched from Portland, Oregon, to the Great Lakes.

The temperature bottomed out Tuesday morning at minus 31 degrees (minus 35 Celsius) in Butte, Montana, where over the past two winters at least five people died from cold exposure, said Brayton Erickson, executive director of the Butte Rescue Mission.

Advocates for homeless people in the city of about 35,000 were out on the streets distributing sleeping bags, jackets, mittens and other cold weather gear to anyone who needed them, according to Erickson.

“When it gets this cold, we kind of pull out all the stops,” Erickson said.

In Oregon's Multnomah County, officials extended a state of emergency through at least Thursday. Five emergency shelters were set to open Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon. Midweek wind chill readings could dip to 10 degrees (minus 12 Celsius) in Portland, the weather service said.

California rains

The atmospheric river was expected to arrive in California starting late Wednesday and to peak Thursday, according to Miles Bliss, a meteorologist with the weather service. Along with flooding, heavy snowfall was expected in the Sierra Nevada.

More than 700,000 sandbags have been arranged across central and Southern California, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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Associated Press journalists from across the U.S. contributed to this report.