Blizzard Barrels Down on Northeast

The “white Christmas” that stranded travelers dream about while splayed out on airport floors today won’t be quite as welcome as the one Irving Berlin had in mind. Across the Eastern Seaboard, winter storms began blanketing Southern cities in snow—creating some of the first “white Christmases” in more than a century—as weather systems moved north, barreling down on the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for New York City, in effect between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 p.m. Monday, forecasting up to 16 inches of snow, and winds over 35 miles per hour, at times decreasing visibility to near zero. With as much as 20 inches of snow threatening parts of New England, alarms have been rung for Rhode Island, and eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut, which are at risk of power outages. By Sunday morning, states of emergency had been declared in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and major airlines had canceled flights from Washington's Dulles to Boston.