A massive winter storm is expected to move east from Kansas, where it is dumping 1 to 2 inches of snow per hour, threatening 20 states with snow and ice. TODAY's Al Roker reports.
By Erin McClam and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News
Lumbering coast to coast, a winter storm hammered Kansas and Nebraska Thursday, with more than a dozen more states in its crosshairs. Accidents were reported across the region, and an Oklahoma teenager was killed when his pickup truck skidded across a slushy road.
The Weather Channel said snow totals would be formidable: Up to a foot of snow for Omaha, Neb., 3 to 6 inches of snow and sleet for St. Louis, 8 to 12 inches of snow for Kansas City, Mo., and 3 to 6 inches of snow for Chicago.
Plows struggled to keep up with a system dumping 1 to 2 inches of snow per hour on Wichita, Kan., and a swath of the country from Ohio to Arkansas prepared for a coating of dangerous ice.
Full coverage from weather.com
Advisories for snow, ice, wind or rain were posted as far south as the Texas Panhandle, as far north as Minnesota and Wisconsin and as far east as the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Authorities urged drivers to slow to a crawl on Interstate 70, which forms a belt across Missouri, or stay off the road altogether.
The speed of the snowfall is ?going to be overwhelming even the best snow-clearing capabilities that they have,? meteorologist Tom Niziol said on The Weather Channel. ?If you don?t have anywhere to go, don?t. Please don?t.?
Along the Kansas-Nebraska state line, up to a foot and a half of snow was expected.
The University of Kansas closed for the day, as did schools in Wichita and Oklahoma City.
The storm is vast: Earlier this week, it closed roads and stranded cars in California and dusted cactus tops in Southwest. At a delayed tournament in Arizona, pro golfers threw snowballs at each other and retreated to the clubhouse for hot chocolate.
The same weather system could dump snow on New England for the third weekend in a row, and a stretch of Georgia and the Florida Panhandle could be doused by 7 inches of rain.
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The storm was blamed for at least one death. An 18-year-old was killed Wednesday when his pickup skidded out of control in the slush on an Oklahoma state highway, crossed into oncoming traffic and was hit by a truck.
In Arkansas, a school bus taking kids home in the afternoon slid off a steep, snowy country road and crashed, leaving the driver and three students with minor injuries, Pope County Sheriff Aaron Duval told The Associated Press.
The storm was expected to pummel the Plains with heavy snow and ice for the rest of Thursday and move toward Chicago and Minneapolis on Friday.?
A wintry mix of snow and ice was likely to the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains, including parts of Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, by Friday morning, The Weather Channel reported.
This story was originally published on Thu Feb 21, 2013 7:34 AM EST
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