Big winter storm hits US East, disrupts travel

Another round of snowy weather hit the eastern United States, killing at least two people, disrupting thousands of flights and hurting travel plans for people trying to return home from the Super Bowl football championship in the New York City area.
The snow neared 8 inches (200 millimeters) yesterday in Philadelphia and New York, according to the National Weather Service.
By late afternoon, the flight-tracking website FlightAware reported more than 4,300 delayed flights and 1,900 canceled flights nationwide in cities including Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey and New York. Inbound flights to Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy airports were delayed two to three hours because of snow and ice.

At least two deaths and one serious injury were blamed on the storm. In Kentucky, a 24-year-old man died Sunday when his car skidded into a snowplow. Yesterday, a 73-year-old New York City man was fatally struck by a backhoe that was moving snow.
A 10-year-old girl was in serious condition after she was impaled by a metal rod while sledding north of Baltimore. Government offices, courts and schools closed in parts of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia; scattered power outages were reported throughout the region.
Another storm is likely to hit the same region beginning tonight, bringing a combination of rain, freezing rain and snow, said Gary Szatkowsi, a weather service meteorologist in New Jersey.