LOWVILLE, N.Y. — Heavy snowfall and numbing temperatures kept parts of the U.S. in a deep freeze Sunday as the Thanksgiving holiday weekend drew to a close. But snowmobilers and skiers are reveling in their wintry terrains.
In the remote Tug Hill region of upstate New York, where lake-effect snow off Lake Ontario can dump several feet of snow at a time, there was up to 46 inches in the Barnes Corners area.
“We just keep digging out,” Kevin Tyo, a local businessman, said Sunday. “We were out all day yesterday, plowing.”
Like many locals, he has a plow attached to the front of his truck for much of the winter, “and I have a tractor with a bucket, and a snowblower.”
His advice? “If you’re not used to it, stay home. If you’re out, slow down.”
‘Tons of people’ stuck
Christine Schintzius, her 4- and 8-year-old sons, and her 12- and 15-year-old nieces had set out on clear roads Friday from Wales, N.Y., southeast of Buffalo. The family planned to attend a travel hockey tournament in Cleveland but instead found themselves snowbound for 19 hours, stuck inside Schintzius’ Honda Pilot.
The family ran into seemingly endless lines of stopped traffic, first on Interstate 90 near the New York-Pennsylvania border for nine hours, and again on Route 5 in Pennsylvania for 10 hours, until being plowed out by some residents.
“There were lines and lines of cars. It was packed. There was tons of people — tons,” Schintzius said by phone Sunday.
While stuck on Route 5, Schintzius never turned off her car, afraid it wouldn’t start again in the cold. Two truckers stopped to check on them during the night. In the morning, the police checked in, along with a local resident who walked the line of cars, handing out muffins and water.
“Thankfully, all of my kids, my nieces, all travel well,” said Schintzius, who had packed a cooler with lunch meats, snacks, yogurt and fruit. “And luckily I had still basically a full tank of gas.”
When they were finally free of the backup Saturday, Schintzius took a roundabout route home, avoiding the worst of the snow that was still falling.
“We went completely around the storm because I was worried — like, I’m not getting stuck in that ever again,” she said.
A blast of arctic air late last week brought bitter temperatures 10 to 20 degrees below average to the Northern Plains, the National Weather Service said, prompting cold advisories for parts of North Dakota.
Frigid air was expected to move over the eastern third of the United States by Monday.
