Freezing Rain Pelts East, Midwest; Flood Watch Issued in Kentucky

Freezing rain pelted the mid-Atlantic states and much of the Midwest on Saturday, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Kentucky as driving rain and melting snow threatened to bring creeks and streams out of their banks.

A flood watch also was posted for West Virginia and east-central Texas, where 4 inches of rain pelted Broaddus.

Advisories for freezing rain and sleet were posted Saturday over much of Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. The weather service also issued advisories for freezing rain mixed with snow over New York state, eastern Pennsylvania, the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland and northwestern Virginia.

Dense fog along Interstate 95 in Fernandina Beach, Fla., near the Georgia border, was blamed for a 19-vehicle accident that left one child critically injured and eight others hospitalized.

“A minor accident had happened in the fog and had the highway blocked,� Florida Highway Patrol official Charlie Crel said. Two other vehicles had stopped on the highway to assist, he said.

“A guy came over state line bridge hauling a U-Haul trailer and struck one of these vehicles that was stopped,� Crel said. “This caused a chain reaction involving 19 vehicles.�

In Ohio, fog settled in as warm, humid air moved across snow-covered fields. Visibility was a quarter of a mile or less in many places.

Dayton International Airport’s 225 daily flights and its roughly 75 cargo flights were canceled Saturday, except for a single cargo flight that departed in the afternoon, spokeswoman Sharon Caudill said.

She said air travel also was hampered in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

A snow advisory was posted for southern New England as snow fell in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Between 2 inches and 5 inches were expected overnight with temperatures in the mid-20s.

Up to 4 inches of snow fell Saturday in the Pennsylvania counties of Bradford, Tioga and Sullivan, the weather service said.

Caribou, Me., had its coldest December reading on record, 31 degrees below zero. That shattered the old record of 26 below set in 1975. The low for the Lower 48 states Saturday morning was 34 below zero at Houlton, Me.