A swath of snow reaching from Texas to Maryland has once again buried states in ice and snow, shutting down highways in Kentucky and causing authorities in Washington D.C. to ban sledding for insurance reasons.
Along with the snow, near record-busting cold has again hit the Northern Virginia, Maryland, D.C. corridor. Forecasters have reported that temperatures across the Baltimore-D.C. region will be 20-30 degrees below normal for this time of the year.
The record low for March 6 for Dulles Airport is 15 degrees, set in 1978, and the record low at Baltimore-Washington International is 13 degrees, set in 1901. Forecasters expect that one or both of these records could be broken.
Friday temperatures in the area may only get to the mid-20s. Normally the region is in the 30s and 40s at this point in the year.
The arctic air is also slamming the Midwest Thursday and Friday.
“There is a significant risk of frostbite and hypothermia for those who spend time outdoors and are not properly dressed for the cold,” AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said.
The weather is also blamed for authorities putting a halt to children sledding on Capitol Hill. Capitol Police have banned kids from sledding, claiming that it is a liability problem.
The police issued data showing that 20,000 people a year are hurt in sledding accidents, and they don’t want that to happen on their watch. To prevent injuries, the department banned sledding.
This brought a sharp rebuke from D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton who demanded that the Capitol Police lift the ban.
The snowstorm that hit Kentucky also stranded a busload of Chicagoans headed to Selma, Alabama, to attend the 50th Anniversary of the Bloody Sunday Civil Rights March.
The bus was filled with members of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition. The reverend himself tweeted about the members of his group being stranded, a group that included his wife Jacqueline.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.