Millions to feel impact of winter’s most significant storm yet

Millions of Americans from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic are bracing for a wintry Monday with heavy snowfall, ice, rain and storms, which are forecast to disrupt morning commutes and snarl airline schedules across the East Coast.

Millions of Americans from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic are bracing for a wintry Monday with heavy snowfall, ice, rain and storms, which are forecast to disrupt morning commutes, delay the start of school, and snarl airline schedules across the East Coast. Meanwhile, the nation’s eyes will be focused on Washington, DC, Monday as the US House and Senate will meet in joint session to count each state’s electoral votes and formally declare Donald Trump and JD Vance the president-elect and vice president-elect, in the midst of a winter storm warning expected to bring snow mixed with sleet, with accumulations between five to 10 inches and isolated amounts of up to 16 inches. Businesses and government agencies in the region are announcing closures, while just to the west, multiple states have already been dealing with inclement weather, shutting down major highways, like I-29 in Missouri, leaving people stranded. All told, the treacherous weather encompasses a 1,300-mile swath of the United States and has left more than 55 million people from Missouri and Arkansas to New Jersey and Delaware under winter weather alerts. US federal government offices in Washington, DC, will be closed Monday due to the weather, according to the Office of Personnel Management, but the closure will not affect Congress. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser told a news conference Sunday afternoon the top priority is getting the city fully opened as soon as possible and urged people to give snowplow teams space to work. “If you don’t need to be on the roads tonight and tomorrow, stay home. Please stay off our roads,” she said. Behind the storm, bitterly cold air is settling across the Central US. Over 45 million people from Nebraska to Texas and east to Louisiana are under cold weather alerts, where low temperatures below freezing and wind chills below zero are possible. By Tuesday, temperature drops of as much as 30 degrees below normal for the eastern two-thirds of the US will lock in whatever snow and ice fall from the storm.