snowstorm

McLean, a 32-year-old data analyst in Chicago, was monitoring his wife’s scheduled United flight to New York on a hunch it would be waylaid by the shutdown and a coming snowstorm.

The storm could bring heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada, and meteorologists were already discouraging travel during the peak time of the snowstorm — between Thursday morning and Friday morning.

Though local residents did notice that the road up the hill was always plowed quickly after snowstorms.

Days of ferocious snowstorms and an avalanche in Nepal's treacherous Himalayan peaks have killed nine people, including five Italian climbers, officials said Tuesday.

And scientists say a warm, wet Tibet could mean unstable weather and frequent snowstorms and blizzards.