There’s no doubt that Boston owns the bragging rights for the winter of 2015.
Still, that’s little comfort to the folks in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, where ice and snow were glazing roads and knocking down power lines Tuesday.
States of emergency were in place across across all four states.
“Please do not travel unless you have to,” Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said. “We need to be attentive to our own safety and our own health but also to the safety of our neighbors and our friends.”
Sometimes just staying on the road was a challenge. Some highways were no better than skating rinks.
More than 50,000 power customers were without power, according to Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
In Kentucky, Monday was one of the snowiest days on record — between 7 and 14 inches was common.
In Lexington, the 10.1 inches that fell made it the fourth snowiest calendar day on record, CNN affiliate WLEX-TV reported.
Iced up
Ice was the main culprit from middle Tennessee into neighboring North Carolina.
“Many surfaces have over one half inch of ice,” the National Weather Service said.
The Charlotte area struggled with accumulations expected to approach four-tenths of an inch.
“It’s dangerously cold,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told CNN’s “The Situation Room,” warning that the nation’s capital was bracing for up to 8 inches of snow and below-freezing temperatures.
Federal government offices in the area were closed Tuesday.
Colder than normal
The storm system quickly took its toll on the power grid, knocking about 200,000 customers off-line in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Temperatures across the eastern half of the United States will be below average for the entire week.
Not just cold, but bitter cold was the rule in New England, where overnight lows plunged into single digits and below zero.
In New York City, lows were in the teens.
Back in Boston
In Boston, where 95 inches of snow have already been recorded this year, the latest storm was expected to skirt by and bring a few more inches, the forecast said.
Still, February 2015 is the city’s snowiest month ever.
Frank Ippolito, the owner of a snow removal business operating in Boston, said his staff was weary from lack of sleep.
At this point, his snowplow drivers are putting snow “anywhere and everywhere there’s an open piece of land that won’t obstruct the view safely of the driver or prevent someone from getting out of a doorway or moving a car,” he said.
Snow rage
Mounting “snow rage” is pitting drivers and neighbors against each other as the winter weather shows no sign of letting up, CNN affiliate WFXT-TV reported.
“We’ve been noticing a little frustration out there on the roads,” Massachusetts State Police trooper Kathryn Downey said. “I think people are getting pushed to their limits.”
Keeping it sane
Margo Souza of Charlestown, Massachusetts, told CNN’s iReport she was trying to take the snow in stride, even though it has doubled her commute. Her golden retrievers, Logan and Copley, love to bound around in it.
Still, she said she was hoping players from her city’s baseball team might bring something with them when they head south for spring training.
“Send the snow to Florida,” she said, “along with the Red Sox equipment.”
One New Yorker, Max Guliani, posted photos on Twitter of the frozen fountain at Bryant Park in New York City.
A pipe burst at the city’s iconic Empire State Building, forcing one of its observatories to shut down, a spokeswoman said.
In Ithaca, in upstate New York, temperatures have gotten so cold that even the city’s tourism website is telling people to head to the Sunshine State.
“That’s it. We surrender,” the website says. “Winter, you win. Key West anyone?”
