ATLANTA (Reuters) – A rare November snowfall powdered parts of the U.S. Southeast late Monday and early Tuesday, with as much as eight inches falling on one Arkansas town and some schools closed in Tennessee.
Snowfall extended through the mid-Mississippi and Tennessee valleys and as far south as Haleyville, Alabama, said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
Parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi reported between one and three inches of snow, and more flurries were forecast on Tuesday.
"It was a surprise to see it this early." said Lesley Hobbs, membership director for the Chamber of Commerce in Paragould, Arkansas. "It was really pretty - big flakes."
Paragould, about an hour north of Memphis, got approximately eight inches of snow, Sosnowski told Reuters.
"It's not a once-in-a-100-year event, but it is once every 50 years," he said of the November snowfall. "Some of these areas only get two to three snow days a year."
He said there was little accumulation on roads, which "were pretty warm."
The wintry scene won't last, with the forecast calling for temperatures as high as 60 degrees later in the week in some areas, Sosnowski said.
(Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Tennessee; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)
