Snowfall hits the Mid-Atlantic, dropping more than a foot in some areas

By Joe Hernandez,

Published January 3, 2022 at 1:51 PM EST

Visitors from France enjoy the scenery as a winter storm delivers heavy snow to the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.

Millions of people in the Eastern United States awoke to snow — or the prospect of snow — on the first Monday of the New Year.

A major winter storm is bringing 4-8 inches of snow to the Southern Appalachians, Washington, D.C. and eventually up to New Jersey later in the day, according to the National Weather Service. As much as a foot of snow is possible in some areas.

Officials said the heaviest snowfall, including thunder snow, was expected as rain changes over to frozen precipitation Monday morning, complicating the morning rush hour.

A mesmerizing look of the ongoing winter storm, as of 2:11 am EST on January 3, 2022. The surface low continues to deepen as it moves through northeast GA. Snow is falling from central AL & northern GA northeast as far as the central VA/WV border, near Luray VA. pic.twitter.com/bG8Y0BHIh1
— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) January 3, 2022

Federal buildings were closed on Monday in the Washington, D.C., area, which was also under a local snow emergency. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency for five counties in the southern part of the state.

A man from New Orleans visiting Washington, D.C. takes a selfie during a snow storm in front of the White House on Jan. 3, 2022. A winter storm is bringing heavy snow to Washington, DC and the mid-Atlantic region on Monday.

Rain and thunderstorms from Florida to the Carolinas, with the possibility for damaging winds and even tornadoes, were also in the forecast as part of the major storm system.

The NWS said power outages would be likely as a result of heavy snow accumulating on power lines, and they were already mounting as of midday Monday. There were more than 150,000 customers in North Carolina without electricity and another 395,000 Virginia customers with no power, according to the website PowerOutage.US.

Georgia, South Carolina and Maryland all had more than 60,000 outages, the website reported.

Some 2,400 U.S. flights were also cancelled on Monday, the website FlightAware said. That included around 500 flights at Washington's Reagan National Airport that had either been cancelled or delayed.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog