New Jersey – With more than 27 inches in parts of southern New Jersey, snow is continuing to pile up, creating blizzard conditions and knocking out power for tens of thousands of residents.

WCBSTV reports that at least three southern New Jersey counties were prohibiting non-emergency vehicles from traveling on county and municipal roads Saturday as snow continued piling up. Atlantic, Camden and Ocean Counties had the travel restrictions in place.

Heaviest snowfalls were seen in the south, with totals of 17 to 27 inches of throughout much of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Ocean counties, according to the National Weather Service.

National Park, in Gloucester County, had the highest reported snow total this afternoon: 27 inches. Mount Laurel, in the Philadelphia suburbs, had more than 21 inches at midday.

Meanwhile, in Washington DC, close to 20 inches of snow piled up at the nation’s capital as a blizzard pounded mid-Atlantic states Saturday, cutting power to hundreds of thousands in the region in what the president referred to as “Snowmaggedon.”

Snow fell from southern Indiana eastward to New York City, Washington, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the New Jersey coast.

President Obama kept to his busy Washington schedule amid the swirling flakes, and ditched “the Beast” — his souped-up Cadillac limousine — for an armored, four-wheel drive Chevy Suburban capable of trudging through the several inches of snow.

Despite plowing and shoveling, the continuous snow made for a slippery White House driveway. Before the 15-vehicle presidential motorcade pulled out of the driveway headed to the Capital Hilton for Obama’s speech to democrats, one of the emergency vehicles lost traction and slid into an SUV. No one was in the car at the time.

The blizzard has left hundreds of thousands of customers from Virginia to Pennsylvania without power, utility companies said. As of 12 p.m., Dominion Virginia Power had restored electricity to 101,000 of 207,000 customers who were without power Saturday morning, the company said.

In Maryland and Washington, more than 104,000 Pepco customers were in the dark, the utility company said. The majority, or 81,324, live in Montgomery County, Maryland, and 9,587 live in Washington, according to Pepco.

In Philadelphia, a reported 26.7 inches had fallen at the airport by 1 p.m., the National Weather Service said.

The storm also may produce a record snowfall for Baltimore, which has 21 inches of snow so far, according to the National Weather Service. Virginia snowman is taller than a house In College Park, Maryland, snow-laden power lines drooped onto branches, causing power failures.

Annapolis, Maryland, had 18 inches of snow by Saturday. State officials at the briefing said 2,400 pieces of equipment were trying to clear highways. The state also was relying on 300 National Guard members to help with ongoing weather trouble. Check on traffic and road conditions More than 750 personnel are clearing roads in Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty said. But the heavy, wet snow has even trapped some plows, Washington Department of Transportation director Gabe Klein said.

(Source: CNN / NJ Star Ledger)