A powerful winter storm begins its march across the middle of the US

A large winter storm that was expected to bring strong winds and heavy snow to a dozen states arrived in the Great Plains on Saturday, forcing officials to close the Kansas City airport in Missouri and an 18-mile section of Interstate 70 in Kansas.

The Kansas City International Airport was closed for about two hours on Saturday while crews worked to clear runways but flights resumed in the evening, Quinton Lucas, the city’s mayor, said on social media.

Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas declared a state of emergency in the state on Saturday afternoon, as officials braced for the storm to worsen.

The Kansas City region was to remain under a blizzard warning until 3 a.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service, which predicted that the area would be blanketed by nine to 14 inches of snow and face wind gusts of up to 40 mph.

“Travel could be very difficult to impossible,” the service said in an update.

The airport’s closure delayed a Kansas City Chiefs team flight to Denver by about three hours but the team was in the air by 5:30 p.m. local time, Brad Gee, a spokesperson for the team, said. The Chiefs were scheduled to play the Broncos on Sunday afternoon.

The storm was also wreaking havoc on the state’s highways.

In a video filmed near a rolled-over semi on Interstate 135 in Kansas and posted on social media, Trooper Ben Gardner of the Kansas Highway Patrol said that the highway was “very, very slick” and that “it’s not getting any better.”

“Get off the roads,” he said. “Don’t be on ‘em because it’s not good and it might result in something really bad happening. Stay home.”

An icy, 18-mile section of Interstate 70 closed at about 3 p.m. because of crashes and spinoffs said Kim Stich, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Transportation. Earlier in the day, another three-mile section of the highway closed but then reopened.

The storm was forecast to intensify in Kansas and then move east along Interstate 70, bringing heavy snow and blistering cold along a band in the Midwest and then to the Mid-Atlantic.

Several states on the storm’s path, including Arkansas, Kentucky and Virginia, declared states of emergency in anticipation of its arrival. Cities including Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis treated roads in advance of the storm and prepared warming centers.

Some places may get their heaviest snowfall in a decade or more, forecasters said Saturday as widespread winter storm warnings took effect.

The weather service issued a smattering of winter watches, advisories and warnings for regions, stretching from eastern Colorado to New Jersey.

”It’s going to be a very impactful storm affecting a pretty huge area of the country,” said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.

As the storm moves on, frigid air was predicted to settle in its wake, as some of the coldest temperatures of the season were expected to linger for days.

The governors of Missouri and Indiana put the National Guard in their states on standby, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia declared a state of emergency and urged people to avoid traveling on Sunday.

In Kansas, plows would be out throughout Saturday night, according to the state’s Transportation Department.

The Prediction Center said that some of the most extreme conditions were likely in places to the north of and running along the Interstate 70 corridor, which passes through St. Louis and Indianapolis.

“The focus of the heaviest snow will be to the south of Chicago,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.

Moderate lake-effect snow could also hit the Upper Great Lakes and Lake Erie through Sunday morning, forecasters said.

The prediction center also warned of “significant icing potential” in the mid-South. Sleet and freezing rain could wreak havoc from eastern Kansas and the Ozarks, stretching east to the Tennessee and lower Ohio valleys.

“That rain will freeze on contact and turn to glazing — that’s what sticks to the trees, power lines, roads, cars, car windows, everything,” Bann said.

The southern Appalachian Mountains were also at risk of icing on Sunday and Sunday night.

There was an enhanced risk, the second level out of five, that severe thunderstorms could form Sunday in parts of the Lower Mississippi Valley and bring lightning, wind gusts, hail and tornadoes.

From Sunday into Monday, the storm was on track to cross the Appalachians and push into the Mid-Atlantic region, including the Washington, D.C., area, along with western Maryland, Northern Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

By daybreak Monday, snow was expected to fall across the Mid-Atlantic region and continue through the day.

The storm arrived at a time when the country was poised to experience what the weather service called a “significant arctic outbreak.”

Temperatures were expected to plummet to below average in areas east of the Rocky Mountains, reaching as far south as the Gulf Coast and Florida, with the frigid weather lasting into mid-January.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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