Major snowstorm hits the Northeast
A powerful winter storm swept through the northeastern United States on Saturday, bringing heavy snow, freezing rain and gusty winds and treacherous travel conditions.
Nearly 20 million people from the northeastern United States to northern New Mexico and California were under winter storm warnings.
Ahead of the storm, residents scrambled for snow removal supplies and officials discouraged travel. For days, officials and forecasters in the Northeast had warned of dangerous conditions, with the region experiencing heavy snow, freezing rain or a combination of both.
Which areas in the Northeast got snow and which got rain varied. Parts of northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey received at least two inches of rain Saturday evening.
The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, N.J., said the storm would bring rain on Saturday evening snowfall rates of up to an inch per hourwith some areas reaching two inches per hour, in the Lehigh Valley and southern Poconos in Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey.
From Saturday 7 p.m. the National Weather Service office in New York reported 0.2 inches of snow had fallen at Central Park and La Guardia Airport, and 0.2 inches of snow at Kennedy Airport. It’s been almost 700 days since Central Park last got an inch of snow in a single day.
New Jersey restricted commercial vehicle travel on multiple highways starting Saturday afternoon. To ease traffic for snow plows and utility workers, Gov. Phil Murphy asked residents to stay home, especially overnight on Saturday when precipitation was forecast to be heaviest.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said “hundreds of plows” were being deployed to clear roads and highways of snow.
In Rhode Island, where less snowfall was forecast, the state Energy Resources Agency said it was closely monitoring the storm’s impact on energy and fuel supplies.
Unitil, a natural gas and electric utility based in Hampton, NH, advised customers to fill their tanks and store three days’ worth of essential items for each member of their household.
“While our region has managed to avoid the recent early rounds of true winter weather, we all knew this could change at any time,” Alec O’Meara, a company spokesperson, said in a statement.
The next storm system is expected to be stronger and warmer, and its effects will be much more widespread, intensifying into a dynamic storm over the Great Plains that will hit the East Coast early to mid-week, forecasters said .
Excessive rainfall from Texas in the Northeast will be a major factor, meaning Sunday’s snow could be washed away by heavy rain on Wednesday, increasing the risk of flooding in places affected by both.
Forecasters also predicted significantly river flooding of excessive rainfall on Tuesday in much of Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
“Strong onshore winds are also likely to lead to coastal flooding along much of the east coast,” the weather service said.