HAMBURG, Pa. — Five days into spring, warm weather and budding flowers were just a rumor Monday as the East Coast endured another blast of winter.
A wide-ranging storm that buried parts of the Midwest weakened as it moved east but still managed to carpet lawns and fields in a fresh layer of white. Many schools opened late or closed early, and hundreds of flights were canceled.
The cold temperatures and miserable mixture of snow and rain had people longing for more agreeable weather.
In Maryland, Michael Pugh donned a wool coat, knit cap, waterproof pants, and heavy boots to trudge more than a mile through 4 inches of wet snow to his bank in downtown Hagerstown, about 70 miles west of Baltimore. He pronounced the weather ‘‘dreadful.’’
Earlier, the storm walloped the Midwest, dumping a record 17 inches in Springfield, Ill., and a foot or more elsewhere in the state. Travel remained treacherous Monday, with interstates 55 and 57 still covered in snow and ice, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Numerous vehicles were reported to be off roads, according to Illinois State Police.
Associated Press