Soggy weather and wind whipping up East Coast (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) ? A storm system expected to drench the Southeast on Tuesday was set to barrel northward later in the day, forecasters said, bringing damaging winds and some snow to parts of the Northeast.

Strong-to-severe thunderstorms were forecast to rumble across parts of the Southeast coast, with areas from southern North Carolina to northern Georgia the most likely to be hit, according to AccuWeather.com.

Damaging winds and downpours are the major threats, with the possibility of a tornado from the strongest storms, it said.

The fast-moving storm was expected to track north and east, bringing with it wet weather and wind.

"The rain, snow, and wind will really crank up tonight across the Northeast, with locally heavy rainfall possible from the Mid-Atlantic to the Maine Coast," said Mark Avery, lead meteorologist for the Weather Channel.

A major route through the Smoky Mountains, from the tourist town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Cherokee, North Carolina, was closed for hours early Tuesday because of downed trees, said Sam Roberts, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

"Some pretty high winds early this morning across the foothills of the Smokies" were to blame for the closures on U.S. 441, said Roberts, who added that winds reached between 70 and 80 miles per hour.

Light snow was reported in upper west Tennessee north of Memphis, and more is expected Tuesday evening in the higher elevations of the Smokies.

Flooding of small creeks and streams was possible in parts of eastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware and western New Jersey where a flood watch was in effect through the evening, according to the National Weather Service.

Whipping winds were expected to continue on Wednesday across the Northeast, according to the Weather Channel, with snow expected in parts of northern New York and northern New England.

Wind gusting over 45 mph at times on Wednesday could cause scattered power outages and impact air travel in cities from Philadelphia to Boston, AccuWeather.com said.

(Reporting by Lauren Keiper, Tim Ghianni and Karin Matz; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111227/us_nm/us_weather

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