Bad Day On I-70: Pileups in Maryland, Colorado
UPDATE: Ironically, at almost the same time but 7 states away, another pileup on I-70, involving 14 vehicles, killed two more people near Genoa Colorado. The problem there was wind, but more specifically dust, which obscured the road. The Colorado Springs Gazette puts the time of the crash around 1 PM local time and says that an 80-mile stretch of the highway was closed.
The Denver Channel says"A peak wind gust of 58 mph was reported around 1 p.m. in Limon (see obs), according to the National Weather Service office in Goodland, Kan."The Denver Post said"Trooper David Hall, spokesman for the State Patrol, said it was "incredibly windy" and that there was so much dust in the air it created a "black wall" to the east of his location." As you can see in the video below, the dust storm hampered recovery efforts.
ORIGINAL POST: The Associated Press says that a 40-car pileup on I-70 near South Mountain, Maryland has killed two people. Here are aerials of the crash (raw video, no audio):
They list 12:30 PM as the time of the accident; the area was seeing heavy snow at that time. The dateline was Myersville, MD, which I have marked on the radar image below (approximately) with an "X" (from our Enhanced Radar which is now available on AccuWeather.com). It's clear from the radar that the area was encountering heavy snow at the time.
MESOWEST (The Government Mesonet), and NDBC. If you don't see your snowfall readings here, post them on the SnowMatrix says that temperatures in the mountainous region were around 26 degrees at the time -- terrible weather conditions combined with the heavy snow. Below is a screencapture from around the time of the crash:
Report a Typo
