Weather

The National Weather Service is predicting accumulation of 2 to 4 inches of snow in central and eastern Missouri on Monday.

High winds and messy mix of rain, sleet and snow make travel difficult.

Nearly two-thirds of the continental U.S. remains in some form of drought.

The National Weather Service placed 13 counties from the Bootheel to north of Cape Girardeau under a blizzard warning from Tuesday night to midday Wednesday.

Although mid-Missouri can expect some snow flurries, it is unlikely Columbia will see any real accumulation over Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

The city's Public Health and Human Services Department has coordinated a network of warming centers around Columbia for those out in the cold.

Columbia's first snow brought power outages and ended 310 consecutive days without snowfall.

Columbia Public Works continue efforts to clear roadways.

The storm, which dumped a foot of snow in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, was part of a system that began in the Rockies earlier in the week before trekking into the Midwest. It was expected to move across the Great Lakes overnight before moving into Canada.

The latest numbers were as of Tuesday, before the arrival of the Midwest's first winter snowstorm.

Winds in excess of 30 mph with higher gusts will combine with snow and make travel difficult by Thursday afternoon. 

As much as a half-inch of snow is forecast in Columbia from a winter storm affecting the Midwest.

In trying to forecast when snow would first hit the city, Missourian reader Andrew Gibson created this graphic, which shows when Columbia saw its first snowfall each year since 2000.

Forecasters don't expect the storm to interrupt Columbia's ongoing stretch of consecutive days without measurable snowfall

Columbia has gone 303 days without snow, a streak that ranks No. 6 on the list of most consecutive days without snow in Columbia since 1890. 

Although temperatures have dropped early this week, Columbia is still on track to have the warmest year on record.

Residents from Connecticut to Rhode Island saw 3 to 6 inches of snow on Wednesday. Worcester, Mass., had 8 inches of snow, and Freehold, N.J., had just over a foot overnight.

In New Jersey, winds were kicking up Wednesday morning and some battered shore communities were ordering mandatory evacuations for later in the day.

The rule bars shutoffs of heat-related gas and electric service when temperatures are expected to fall below 32 in the following 24 hours, and is in effect from Nov. 1 through March 31.

New York City buses returned to darkened streets, two airports reopened and the New York Stock Exchange prepared to resume trading, but it was clear that restoring the region to its ordinarily frenetic pace could take days.