MIAMI: It´s called snow, something residents of North Florida hadn´t seenin almost three decades until Wednesday, and it is part of a deep-freezestriking the entire US East Coast.
The US National Weather Service warned that a major winter storm wouldbring heavy snow and ice, from Florida in the southeast up to New Englandand the Northeast on Wednesday and Thursday.
New York City was under a winter storm watch, with between three and sixinches (8-15 centimeters) of snow expected from Wednesday night throughThursday.
Tallahassee, Florida´s capital in the far north of the “Sunshine State,”awoke Wednesday to a dusting of 0.1 inches of snow, the first significantmeasurement since 1989, according to the Weather Channel.
Floridians, more accustomed to hurricanes than this odd white substance,rushed to publish on social media their photos of snow covering theirwarm-weather flip-flop footwear and outdoor swimming pools.
#snowmageddon, they called it on Twitter.
The storm has already led to the closure of roads in northern Florida andsoutheastern Georgia, where governor Nathan Deal declared a state ofemergency in the coastal area.
Florida´s governor Rick Scott urged people in the northern part of hisstate “to prepare for extreme cold weather conditions, including potentialsnow, sleet or ice accumulations.”
Forecasters said the night-time temperature would fall below freezing inTallahassee this week.
The National Weather Service said the rapidly deepening area of lowpressure off Florida´s east coast will move northeastward bringing snow tothe southern mid-Atlantic coast and then to New England as it moves towardsthe Canadian Maritimes by Friday.
“The potential exists for dangerous travel, scattered power outages, tidalflooding, and very cold wind chills,” the Weather Service said on itswebsite.