WASHINGTON (AP) - The latest on the blizzard slamming a large swath of the United States (all times local):
10:30 p.m.
Gov. Larry Hogan has ordered the immediate closure of the entire 34.7-mile length of I-270 and I-70 from I-81 in Washington County to the Baltimore Beltway. The highways will remain closed until 7 a.m. on Sunday to all motorists except for emergency personnel. The closures follow snow related traffic incidents involving several tractor trailers and other vehicles on both interstates.
Hogan, in a news release Saturday evening, said, "Closing I-70and I-270 will give us the time needed to deploy all our resources to clear these essential interstates as quickly as possible as we prepare to get our transportation network back up and running."
Hogan urged Marylanders to stay off every road in the state. He said, "Stay safe and stay at home while crews do their jobs."
The blizzard has brought much of the East Coast to a standstill and shut down the nation's capital. At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia.
9:15 p.m.
A university basketball team and a university gymnastics team whose buses were marooned in snow on the Pennsylvania Turnpike are heading home.
Buses carrying the Duquesne (doo-KAYN') University men's basketball team and the Temple University women's gymnastics squad were among more than 500 vehicles that got stuck on the turnpike Friday night as a blizzard hit the region.
National Guard members and front-end loaders started digging vehicles out Saturday. The teams say they their buses were freed Saturday night. Duquesne says 15 basketball players, coaches and support staff members helped push their bus through the snow.
The blizzard has brought much of the East Coast to a standstill and shut down the nation's capital. At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia.
9 p.m.
New York's governor says a travel ban he instituted during a massive snowstorm will likely be lifted by morning.
Andrew Cuomo (KWOH'-moh) says Saturday he expects to lift the ban that barred non-emergency motorists from being on the roads by 7 a.m. Sunday.
Officials had warned that police would enforce the ban so that workers could clear the roads. Cuomo says he's unaware of any arrests.
The governor declared a state of emergency Saturday throughout New York City and its suburbs during the storm.
Transit officials have shut down the above-ground portions of the Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road and city subway systems.
Public buses stopped running at noon in New York City.
Cuomo says officials will advise by 6 a.m. Sunday whether above-ground subway service will resume.
More than 25 inches of snow have fallen in New York City during a blizzard that has blanketed the East Coast.
8:45 p.m.
Two airports in the Washington region will likely remain closed through Sunday.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport, said Saturday evening in a statement that the airports continue to experience significant snowfall.
The authority says the snow and high winds are making snow removal on the runways, roadways and parking lots difficult. Add that to the closure of roads and public transportation, and the authority says it is unlikely that normal flight operations would resume Sunday.
The authority says passengers should contact their airline directly for specific flight information and to re-book any flights if necessary. The authority says it will continue to evaluate conditions to make decisions about when to open the runways.
Nearly 30 inches of snow had reportedly fallen at Dulles as of 8 p.m. The blizzard has brought much of the East Coast to a standstill and shut down the nation's capital. At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the weather.
8:15 p.m.
More than 25 inches of snow have fallen in New York City during a blizzard that has blanketed the East Coast.
A National Weather Service meteorologist puts the 7 p.m. Saturday reading at 25.1 inches in Central Park.
The 25.1-inch snowfall marks the third most since records were kept beginning in 1869. The National Weather Service says the current record is 26.9 inches from February 2006.
Officials say the snowstorm could continue through Saturday night.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH'-moh) has instituted a travel ban to keep non-emergency workers off the roads. Transit officials have suspended above-ground train service.
The blizzard has brought much of the East Coast to a standstill and shut down the nation's capital. At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia.
7:30 p.m.
Baltimore is banning nonemergency vehicles from its streets overnight to speed the cleanup from the massive East Coast snowstorm.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is announcing that the ban will be in effect from 6:30 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday. It could be extended, if conditions warrant.
The mayor says only police cruisers, fire trucks, ambulances, snow plows and BGE utility repair trucks should be on the roads during that time. City hospitals are being asked to keep the workers they need onsite, as well.
City officials say the ban is necessary because crews are rescuing too many stranded drivers and need to focus on responding to emergencies and digging out the city. The mayor says the ban will help everyone get back to normal.
6:30 p.m.
Officials say three people have died while shoveling snow during the blizzard in New York City and two more died of hypothermia in Virginia, bringing weather-related deaths to at least 18.
The New York Police Department's Chief of Department Jim O'Neill told reporters Saturday one person on Staten Island and two people in Queens died.
He released no further details on the deaths. A police spokesman said the medical examiner's office will determine exactly how they died.
Spokeswoman Corinne Geller says the Office of the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner has confirmed that two deaths are the result of hypothermia. Those deaths occurred in Hampton and Wise County, in southwest Virginia.
State police did not release the names of the hypothermia victims or the time or circumstances of their deaths.
Snow is expected to keep falling until late Saturday or early Sunday morning.
5:20 p.m.
The massive snowstorm that kept most of the Mid-Atlantic at home also snowed in a Virginia midwife, leaving an emergency dispatcher to walk her husband through the birthing of a baby boy.
The Stafford County Sheriff's Office reports that the county's emergency communications center received a 911 call Saturday afternoon at the height of the storm.
The caller said a woman was in labor but the midwife was unable to reach their home because of the storm.
While the county's fire and rescue was sent to the residence, the dispatcher talked the father through the delivery of a healthy baby boy.
A news release did not include the dispatcher's name or the infant's weight.
5 p.m.
New York's above-ground subway service has been shut down as snow continues to fall throughout the city.
More than 19 inches of snow has fallen in Central Park.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority revealed a revised subway map after limiting service Saturday afternoon. Much service on the 4 and 5 lines in the Bronx, the A line to the Rockaways and the B, D, F and Q lines in Brooklyn is suspended. Bus service was shut down hours earlier.
The MTA says above-ground Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad service also has been stopped.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH'-moh) has declared a state of emergency in New York City and its suburbs.
4:45 p.m.
Forecaster Gregory Gallina of the National Weather Service says the weekend's blizzard is transitioning away from the Washington-Baltimore area, moving further north, but in doing so its "end throws" are fierce.
That means strong winds of about an inch-and-a-half snow per hour and gusty nearly horizontal winds, although not the hurricane force winds seen on the coast earlier today.
Gallina says the Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia region should get another two to six inches of snow before the storm ends around midnight.
But in New York, the blizzard is just strong, not ending. Gallina says New York City was seeing snow fall at a rate of two to three inches per hour.
4:00 p.m.
Snow, ice and gusting winds are being blamed for the collapse of a roof at a historic Virginia theater near the Chesapeake Bay.
The Donk's Theater roof gave in Friday as the massive winter storm gripping the East Coast swept into Mathews County, about 75 miles east of Richmond. No one was injured.
The county's chief building official, Jamie Wilks, said the theater was a total loss, according to the Daily Press of Newport News (http://bit.ly/1ZJvZjS). He said the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The theater opened in 1947 as a movie house. It closed in the 70s but was resurrected as a country music venue, ultimately earning the title as "Home of Virginia's Lil' Ole Opry."
Dolly Parton was among the country entertainers who performed at Donk's.
3:45 p.m.
Forty inches of snow fell in a rural area of West Virginia, not far from Harper's Ferry, according to unofficial statistics at the National Weather Service.
Glengary, West Virginia, topped the charts for the East Coast blizzard with 40 inches, but 67 locations - mostly in West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland - reported at least two feet of snow. Dulles International Airport outside of Washington was just behind at 23.5 inches of snow, which puts it third all time for that location with another eight hours or so of snow forecast.
Snow is expected to keep falling until late Saturday or early Sunday morning. High winds - sometimes seeming to blow sideways - are making it hard to get accurate measurements of snowfall except in official locations, meteorologists said.
3:10 p.m.
The powerful winter storm pummeling much of the U.S. also stymied the U.S. military on Saturday.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter was heading home from a five-day trip to Paris and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But his high-tech aircraft - known as the Doomsday Plane - wasn't able to land at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland as originally planned.
Instead, the plane took a left turn and headed south. Carter was rerouted to Tampa, Florida, where he will wait until he is able to fly into the nation's capital.
3:10 p.m.
The head of the District of Columbia's homeland security agency says it's too early to say how long snow will shut down the city.
Christopher Geldart, director of the District of Columbia's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, told Fox News that snow is still coming down at a rate of about 2 inches an hour. He says snow could continue until midnight Saturday.
Geldart says plow drivers are trying to hit each of their assigned roadways at least one time during their shift. He says they are making sure first responders can get around but are not yet in the phase where they are trying to clear the roads for drivers.
2:45 p.m.
Gov. Tom Wolf says more than 500 vehicles are stuck in the miles-long backup in western Pennsylvania, but emergency crews have been delivering supplies and officials are working to move people to shelters if needed.
Wolf told reporters Saturday afternoon that each vehicle had been checked at least once, and workers had been delivering food as well as fuel to make sure engines keep running so the heat can stay on.
He says they are working to get shelters in place quickly so people can be moved to them in buses if necessary.
And Wolf said the rest of the commonwealth "is in as good a state as can be expected." But he warned people to stay off the roads and said another major problem could prompt a closure of highways in the commonwealth.
2:45 p.m.
An interstate highway north of Charleston, West Virginia, has reopened after as many as 200 vehicles were stranded overnight amid a snowstorm.
The logjam of mostly tractor trailers on Interstate 77 was cleared by noon Saturday after road crews plowed the snowy highway surface and a fleet of wreckers pulled out stuck vehicles.
C.W. Sigman of the Kanawha County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said the vehicles became ensnared Friday evening as snow moved into West Virginia's capital city.
He said the backup of dozens of big rigs grew as the night went on and into Saturday morning.
Charleston received nearly 1 ½ feet of snow.
2:35 p.m.
North Carolina troopers say a sixth person has died in the state as a result of snow and ice that have covered roads in recent days.
The death brings the nationwide total to 12 people killed in a massive snowstorm that has battered the South, mid-Atlantic and East.
State Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Michael Baker said Saturday that a motorist died after losing control of her car and hitting a tree in Hickory. Troopers say 19-year-old Madeline Paige Scalf of High Point was killed in the Friday morning crash.
1:55 p.m.
Authorities say a Kentucky transportation worker has died while plowing snow-covered highways, bringing the total number of deaths from the massive snowstorm hitting the U.S. to at least 11.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says in a statement that Christopher Adams died Saturday in Christian County.
The statement says Adams called a supervisor about 5:50 a.m., saying his snow plow had slid into a ditch along Kentucky Route 115. When the supervisor arrived, Adams was slumped over in his truck seat and unresponsive.
An ambulance was called to the scene. Paramedics called a coroner.
Officials say the 44-year-old Adams had been working since about midnight. His family has been notified, but a cause of death has not been released.
1:45 p.m.
Seven locations near Washington have unofficially passed the 30 inches of snow mark, as of 1 p.m. Saturday.
That's according to the National Weather Service's running totals. And 36 places recorded at least two feet of snow.
A trained weather spotter reported 33 inches in Berkeley County, West Virginia. A National Weather Service employee in Frederick, Maryland, and trained spotters in Loudoun County, Virginia, and Jefferson County, West Virginia, all recorded 31 inches of snow.
1:45 p.m.
Danny DeVito had a plan for escaping the east coast blizzard even before it hit: He headed west to the Sundance Film Festival.
DeVito says: "I'm only staying tonight. I'm leaving tomorrow. Yeah, I've got to go to LA." I'm going west and I'll get to LA and wait for the snow to become slush and then I'll go to New York because I like it better when it's really ick and you slosh through. Otherwise why buy boots?"
DeVito is among the stars of "Weiner-Dog," which premiered Friday night.
1:40 p.m.
About 150,000 North Carolina homes and businesses are shuddering in the cold after ice and strong winds caused power outages.
The State Highway Patrol warned motorists Saturday to stay off roads that were coated with invisible sheets of ice. Troopers had responded to more than 2,000 crashes since icy conditions moved in on Wednesday. At least five storm-related deaths are reported in the state.
The heaviest power outages were south of Raleigh. Officials warned statewide that sustained winds of 20 miles an hour Saturday threatened to rip down ice-coated power lines.
Most flights in and out of Raleigh-Durham's airport were canceled, but American Airlines' second-busiest hub in Charlotte was open.
Gov. Pat McCrory urged fans to stay home rather than attend Saturday's rivalry game between Duke University and North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
1:40 p.m.
Police say all lanes are open on Interstate 75 in south-central Kentucky after hundreds of drivers were stranded overnight
Kentucky State Police and emergency officials gave the update on Saturday.
Trooper Lloyd Cochran has said he doesn't have a figure for number of cars or people affected by the standstill but noted that no injuries were reported.
He says local hotels were booked. Shelters also were opened, but Cochran says he doesn't know how many people went there.
Cochran says salt trucks are out, but he and other officials say traffic is moving slowly and will continue to do so for some time.
1:15 p.m.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced a travel ban in New York City as a massive snowstorm hits the region with up to two feet of snow.
Cuomo says all non-emergency vehicles should be off the roads after 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says the police will enforce the ban.
De Blasio says people should heed the warnings and "immediately go home." He urged Broadway theaters to cancel performances and restaurants to close.
Cuomo says Metro-North, the Long Island Rail Road and above-ground parts of the subway system will shut down at 4 p.m.
MTA buses stopped running at noon.
1:15 p.m.
All Broadway shows - both matinees and evening performances - were canceled Saturday after New York state officials declared a weather emergency.
A ban on travel in New York and the suspension of public transportation forced Broadway producers and theater owners to pull the plug.
Charlotte St. Martin - president of The Broadway League, which represents producers- says: "We expect normal operations to resume for tomorrow's Sunday matinees."
The storm didn't stop the inaugural three-day BroadwayCon - sort of like a Comic Con for thespians - at a midtown hotel.
Further north, a Rita Moreno concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center was canceled.
The last time Broadway took a big weather hit was Superstorm Sandy in 2012. It darkened Broadway for four days and cost more than $8.5 million in lost revenue.
1:05 p.m.
After a week of forecasting how bad this blizzard would be and a night stuck in the Atlanta airport because of the weather, meteorologist Ryan Maue says he was out of words to properly describe how big and bad this storm is.
Meteorologists say that even with double-digit - and up to 2-feet - snow accumulations, cities across the East can expect much more until it all ends late Saturday or early Sunday.
Maue, of the private WeatherBell Analytics, estimates that Washington will get another 9 to 10 inches of snow and New York 14 to 20 more inches by noon.
He says 80 million people are affected, and a quarter of the U.S. is suffering from snow.
And yet it could have been more. He says that's because the low pressure storm center of the coast is elongated. Had it been more focused, there could have been even more snow and high wind.
He adds: "This is going to be one of those generational events, where your parents talk about how bad it was."
1:05 p.m.
People all over the East Coast are dragging out yardsticks, if they can find them, to measure the snow as a major blizzard hits a huge swath of the country.
But private meteorologist Ryan Maue said Saturday that in some cases, those 36-inch measuring tools may not be enough. People might find more snow than that outside their doors.
Maue also says this storm may be the first true social media blizzard. As an example, video from the National Zoo in Washington of giant pandas playing in the snow went viral.
1:05 p.m.
The major snowstorm menacing much of the U.S. continued to deliver on its promises Saturday in the Mid-Atlantic, dumping more than 27 inches of snow by noon in the Maryland suburbs of the nation's capital.
The highest amount in the unofficial numbers compiled by the National Weather Service was 27.2 inches in Clarksburg, which is in Montgomery County.
Observers in Washington reported a high of 18 inches in the city's Anacostia neighborhood.
Fifteen inches was reported in Baltimore.
More than 2 feet of snow was reported in Allegany County in western Maryland, Carroll County in central Maryland, in the northern Virginia city of Manassas and in Purcellville in Loudoun County, Virginia.
12:25 p.m.
The Rev. Shaun Whittington and his church group of 96 parishioners, mostly teenagers, looked out the windows of their bus Saturday morning, after 14 hours stranded on the intestate, and saw plows finally digging out cars around them.
They were on their way home to Indiana from the March for Life in Washington, D.C., when around 9 p.m. the Pennsylvania Turnpike turned into a snowy parking lot, as the blizzard dumped snow in several states.
Whittington says they had enough gas to keep the buses running and DVDs to keep the kids entertained until nearly noon the next day, when plows and haulers arrived.
Whittington say the group is warm, fed, and in good spirits.
The group was among many stuck on the turnpike; two university sports teams were in the same predicament. Emergency crews and the National Guard were called out to help.
12:10 p.m.
Authorities in Maryland say a man shoveling snow has died after an apparent heart attack as a blizzard dumps snow across much of the U.S., bringing the total number of deaths from the storm to at least 10 nationwide.
Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department spokesman Mark Brady says paramedics were called to the Fort Washington area around 10 a.m. Saturday for a report of a 60-year-old man who was shoveling and appeared to have a heart attack. Brady says medics were not able to revive the man and he died. His name wasn't released.
Brady had just sent out an advisory warning of the potential for heart attacks while shoveling. He urged people over 50 and those with heart conditions to get someone else to do the job, noting that the amount of snowfall associated with this storm will be particularly challenging to shovel.
12:10 p.m.
Members of the Temple University women's gymnastics team are among those stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike due to the big winter storm - but their coach says they're doing fine.
Umme Salim-Beasley says the team's bus has been stuck since Friday night about 80 miles from Pittsburgh. She says they left Philadelphia at about 2 p.m. Friday to try to beat the storm but ran into traffic.
The Duquesne men's basketball team is also stuck on the Turnpike. Coach Jim Ferry says his guys were running out of leftover pizza.
Salim-Beasley says her team's provisions are holding out. Fire department personnel brought them water - and they usually travel with a large amount of snacks "so those came in handy."
Turnpike officials say some pockets of stranded motorists stretch back 2 or 3 miles. The National Guard has been mobilized to help and first responders are using ATVs to reach stuck motorists.
Noon
Flight tracking service FlightAware says more than 5,500 flights to, from or within the U.S. have been canceled this weekend due to the blizzard hitting the East Coast.
The bulk of Saturday's nearly 4,300 cancelations are at airports in the New York City and Washington areas. Another 1,200 flights were canceled for Sunday. Those cancelations center on Philadelphia, Washington and New York City. Airlines have essentially shut down all flights into those cities.
The airlines hope to be back to a full schedule by Sunday afternoon to handle the typical influx of business travelers heading out to start the work week.