MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – A blizzard roared into North Dakota on Monday and was expected to dump up to a foot of snow in neighboring Minnesota before moving east over the mid-Atlantic states, where it could bury the Washington area with its biggest snowfall of the winter, the National Weather Service said.
Blowing snow and drifts up to three feet (0.9 meter) left parts of Montana and the northwest North Dakota oil region with visibility at a quarter of mile under blizzard conditions that were expected to last into Monday night, the weather service said.
The North Dakota transportation department was recommending “no travel” on roads across the northwestern part of the state where there is a blizzard, stretching along the northern edge of the state across to roads north of Grand Forks.
Up to 15 inches of snow was expected in northwestern North Dakota and 9 inches in the Grand Forks area, on the eastern border with Minnesota. But the state took the latest storm in stride.
“It’s a normal late winter storm for us,” said Adam Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck.
The Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area was dusted by an inch or two of snow on Monday from a separate storm system, and up to 10 inches was expected from the main winter storm, mostly overnight into Tuesday