A large storm hit the US east coast on Monday, bringing record-breaking snow that caused disruptions for millions and thousands of flight cancellations.
The storm has started to taper off after smashing records and dropping more than a foot of snow in eight US states.
The impact is expected to linger for days. More than 11,000 flights have been grounded through Tuesday, and more than 500,000 homes and businesses were left without power.
Drivers in some parts of Massachusetts have been ordered to stay off the roads as snowplow crews struggle to catch up after whiteout conditions engulfed the state’s south coast.
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“We have reports of abandoned and stuck cars on the roads, and tow trucks are having difficulty getting to them,” Massachusetts governor Maura Healey said, urging drivers to stay put “for the safety of plough drivers and emergency officials who are trying to do their jobs.”
Manhattan’s Central Park recorded about 20 inches (50cm) of snow from Sunday through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
Providence, Rhode Island, broke its record for a single snowstorm with 32.8 inches, the National Weather Service said.
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By last evening, the snow was dwindling off across New York and conditions were improving, said Jim Connolly, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
“The worst is over for New York,” Connolly said.
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani lifted the directive that closed streets, highways and bridges to most traffic. City schools will be open for in-person instruction Tuesday.
The storm, however, still disrupted transportation across the northeast and beyond. Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston through Monday night, and cancellations mounted nationwide.
In all, some 11,055 US flights scheduled from Sunday to Tuesday had been cancelled, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service.
Heavy snow had damaged power lines and caused outages stretching from Virginia to Massachusetts.
The heaviest snow and strongest winds swept across Long Island into Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, said Rob Carolan, owner of Hometown Forecast Services, which provides outlooks for Bloomberg Radio.
Gusts reached 47 miles per hour at John F. Kennedy International Airport and as high as 70mph on the Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
A weak system moving through the mid-Atlantic on Thursday into Friday may bring a few more inches of new snow to New York City and, possibly, Boston, said Frank Pereira, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.
A more robust storm may arrive by the middle of next week, Pereira said, but it is still too early to predict details. One computer forecast model sees rain across large East Coast cities, including New York, while another said there may be a little snow. – Bloomberg
