Rare Southern snow and Northeast storm disrupt holiday travel plans across U.S.

Snow blanketed highways and neighborhoods from Long Island to the Florida Panhandle overnight, turning familiar roads into winter scenes rarely seen that far south and snarling travel across the eastern half of the U.S. during a busy holiday weekend.
Flight delays continued to pile up Sunday for thousands of people, foiling Martin Luther King Jr. weekend travel plans for thousands of people. More than 4,100 flights traveling into, out of and within the U.S. were delayed and 442 were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.
Two separate storm systems stretched across the country, placing roughly 55 million people under winter alerts from the northern Plains and Great Lakes through the Northeast and into parts of the Southeast.
A long line of snow and rain showers stretched from the Gulf Coast through the Northeast, with snow reported as far south as the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and Alabama — marking the second straight year that snow has fallen in Florida, according to The Associated Press.
Snowfall reports as of 10 a.m. Sunday included 5 inches in Whitefield, New Hampshire, 4.5 inches in Saratoga Springs, New York, 3 inches in Smithville, Georgia, and 2.8 in Lancaster, Massachusetts.
Farther south in Foxborough, snow fell at Gillette Stadium as the Houston Texans faced the New England Patriots in an NFL divisional playoff matchup Sunday afternoon.
The snow made travel hazardous across large stretches of the eastern U.S. In Berks County, Pennsylvania, multiple vehicles crashed into each other in a chain-reaction pileup on Interstate 78 on Saturday as slick conditions spread through the region.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul warned that heavy snow and strong wind gusts could continue to disrupt travel early next week and may even cause power outages.