A video showing the extent of a vehicle pileup on a highway in Kentucky following a heavy snowstorm on Thursday has gone viral.
Shared to Twitter by Chris Bailey, the chief meteorologist at local news outlet WKYT, it shows a thick blanket of snow coating cars that are piled up along the Western Kentucky Parkway.
Some of the vehicles were smashed up, with lots of visible damage, while others had been T-boned.
Bailey captioned the footage, which has been viewed more than 161,100 times: "Incredible video from the massive pileup on the Western Kentucky Parkway."
The storm covered many parts of the South with thick snow, and some areas of Kentucky had as much as 9 inches.
There was also a pileup of up to 70 cars on interstate 64 near Mount Sterling, as well as many other accidents.
On Thursday, Kentucky Senator Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency due to the heavy snow, which resulted in hundreds of collisions, road closures and power outages.
Incredible video from the massive pileup on the Western Kentucky Parkway. #kywx pic.twitter.com/Bb3Aab1lvQ
— Chris Bailey (@Kentuckyweather) January 6, 2022
"We are urging Kentuckians to stay off the roads if possible," he said in a statement. "The weather we are continuing to see across Kentucky is dangerous."
He then went on to Tweet that: "There are already hundreds of reported car accidents across the state due to the severe winter weather" and that he had deployed the Kentucky National Guard to help road crews and police.
Aside from the heavy snow there, areas of the East Coast are bracing themselves for stormy weather.
The National Weather Service issued a warning that will remain in effect for much of the evening of Friday, January 7.
"Heavy mixed precipitation. Additional snow accumulations of five to 10 inches and ice accumulations of a light glaze. Winds gusting as high as 45mph," the agency wrote.
Speaking to Newsweek, Tyler Roys, senior meteorologist and lead European forecaster at AccuWeather, confirmed that the winter storm had traveled through several states before reaching the East Coast.
He said: "As AccuWeather correctly predicted days in advance, a winter storm brought a swath of three to six inches of snow from Tennessee and Kentucky through much of Maryland and southern Pennsylvania through 7am EST.
"At this time, the heavy snow bands have exited the NYC region and central Connecticut while they continue to move across eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts.
"There will be an area from central Long Island through south-central and northeastern Connecticut to Boston that will likely see around a foot of snow by later this afternoon."
