Tuesday saw millions across the northeastern United States digging their way out after a deadly winter storm blanketed the region in snow, cancelling flights, disrupting transit and downing powerlines.
Winter Storm Hernando slammed into the northeastern US on Sunday night, rapidly intensifying into a bomb cyclone in the early hours of Monday, delivering hurricane-force wind gusts and intensifying snow bands, reports CNN. Governors in seven states made emergency declarations ahead of the storm, state and local officials issuing travel bans, pausing public transit and urging residents to avoid any unnecessary travel in the treacherous conditions.
High winds snapped trees and power poles in half, while waves high enough to top two-storey houses crashed into parts of the coast and inland flooding swept down streets. Meteorologists say Hernando is the strongest winter storm in a decade. At least half a dozen cities saw winds exceeding 119 kph, and by Monday evening, the entire region was buried under at least 30 cm of snow, with the highest totals topping 90 cm.
At least two deaths have been attributed to the storm, after police in Maryland found two passengers dead and one injured in a car crushed by a tree that toppled under heavy snow.
[See more: Hokkaido in northern Japan has been buried under record-breaking snowfall]
Over 650,000 customers lost power, according to PowerOutge.us, more than a third in Massachusetts alone. Utility workers managed to cut the total number of outages in half by Tuesday, although Massachusetts remained in the dark, one company telling CNN that the blizzard conditions on Monday had limited its workers’ ability to restore power that day.
Hernando also forced more than 10,000 flight cancellations between Sunday and Tuesday, according to FlightAware, with around 5,600 cancelled on Monday alone, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all scheduled departures nationwide. Even as the winds and snow subsided on Tuesday, around 2,200 more flights were cancelled, most involving international airports in New York, New Jersey and Boston.
Now the National Weather Service is tracking another storm that could push into the northeast on Wednesday, a clipper storm that could deliver a mix of rain and around 3-10 centimetres of snow. While the new storm is far weaker than Hernando, even a small amount of additional snow could complicate cleanup and potentially delay repairs to downed powerlines.
