Storm Spreads Rain and Ice Along East Coast

A rain-laden storm that rolled up the East Coast on Christmas Eve drowned two people in Virginia and left a layer of ice that sent Christmas Day travelers sliding into ditches in New England.

Snow fell over eastern Idaho, with snow showers scattered over central Illinois, and an inch of snow fell in six hours atop New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington, the National Weather Service said.

Ski area operators in New Hampshire, where mountains are covered with as much as 60 inches of snow, said that the season so far is their best ever.

The Eastern storm, caused by two warm low-pressure systems moving along the East Coast and the Appalachian mountains, flooded numerous low-lying areas in Virginia.

Most Rain Since July

Richmond, Va., got 2.65 inches of rain overnight, and Michael Gillen of the weather service said that was the city’s heaviest rainfall since July 23.

In Clark County, two people were killed when high waters swept a pickup truck 200 yards down Opequon Creek. In Fairfax County, a man was missing after his car went off a private bridge. The car was later found submerged.

Baltimore got 2.49 inches of rain, and city fire officials got more than 100 calls from people asking for help in pumping water out of their basements, Capt. Patrick Flynn said.

If temperatures had been lower, the region would have had about 25 inches of snow, said Donald Marier, a weather service spokesman.

Roads Become Slippery

Farther north, the rain froze and cars spun off roads in central and southern Maine and northern New Hampshire.

A state police dispatcher in Augusta, Me., said some members of state road-sanding crews were unable to get to work early Thursday because the roads were so slick.

Tim Gannett, general manager and co-owner of Crotched Mountain Ski Area in New Hampshire, said more than 60 inches of snow already has fallen at the Francestown resort this year. Last weekend was “the best pre-Christmas weekend in my 17 years here,” Gannett said.

Fair weather was reported from the Plains and the Rockies into the Great Basin and the Southwest. By mid-afternoon, much of the country had temperatures ranging from the low 30s into the upper 40s.