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winter storm
A new storm is expected to dump more than a foot of snow on parts of the Midwest, New York and New England, which is still recovering from a winter walloping it received just a few days ago.
The storm is forecast to move into the Midwest on Saturday night and last through Monday morning. It’s expected to be the most widespread storm of the season so far and dump a significant amount of snow from Nebraska to Maine, according to the National Weather Service.
It’s also forecast to be unusually slow-moving, meaning accumulations of between 10 to 14 inches of snow are possible for parts of northern Illinois, Indiana and northwest Ohio. Similar amounts of snow are expected for the Northeast on Monday, February 2.
The storm could make road conditions hazardous for those heading to Super Bowl parties, especially in the Midwest, where the most intense period of snow is forecast to hit Sunday right around game time. Combine that with potential wind gusts of up to 40 mph, and drivers could face terrible visibility and snarling snow drifts. The good news for game-day revelers living near public transportation in the Chicago area is that the storm is not expected to be rough enough to shut down train traffic.
Parts of New England are still recovering from a blizzard that threw down a record 34.5 inches of snow in the central Massachusetts city of Worcester, where dump trucks and front-end loaders had to be brought in to move snow.
This week’s storm hit Boston with 24 inches, and Providence, Rhode Island, had about 19 inches.
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Midwest and parts of Canada have been hit by an Arctic blast with temperatures plummeting by as much as 40F in days.
The sharply cooler temperatures are a result of frigid air pushed in by a powerful storm that hit Alaska with hurricane-force winds.
Parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan saw over a foot of snow overnight on November 10.
More than 150 flights were cancelled at the Minneapolis airport.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was expecting as much as another two feet of snow after accumulating more than a foot on November 10.
Midwest and parts of Canada have been hit by an Arctic blast with temperatures plummeting by as much as 40F in days
In Minnesota, state police said at least two people were killed in accidents on icy roads.
Snowy roads were blamed for a Wisconsin school bus crash that sent two adults to hospital, according to a local broadcaster.
Terri Sommerfeld, a clerk at Ace Hardware in Webster, Wisconsin, said the store had sold six or seven snow-blowers in two days, the same amount they sell in a typical winter.
The unseasonably cold temperatures are expected to move further east on November 12.
What made this chill more of a shock was the way it struck so quickly after warm autumn weather.
David Phillips, a climatologist for Environment Canada, says Calgary experienced its warmest October for 50 years. The average temperature was 8.3C and it’s usually 5.2C.
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The “catastrophic” winter storm that gridlocked traffic, left flights cancelled, and knocked out power in the East Coast, has pushed into eastern Canada.
As much as 24in was expected to fall in some areas by the end of Friday, blown about by heavy winds from Quebec to Newfoundland.
Authorities closed a 124 mile section of the Trans-Canada Highway in Quebec.
The storm has been blamed for the deaths of more than two dozen people.
In the US, about half a million of people and businesses remained without power in the typically mild southern states on Friday, some for a third day, after the storm destroyed power lines and knocked down trees.
The weather system tapered off as it crawled farther north, but was still strong enough to bring almost 30cm of snow to areas of Quebec and parts of Newfoundland on Friday, with high winds of more than 60 mph.
Other parts of the eastern provinces and Nova Scotia saw heavy rain from the same storm.
In eastern Quebec, several motorways, including the Trans-Canada Highway from Quebec City to Riviere-du-Loup, were partially shut after the snow and high winds dangerously hindered visibility.
The “catastrophic” winter storm that gridlocked traffic, left flights cancelled, and knocked out power in the East Coast, has pushed into eastern Canada
Canadian weather officials have issued a number of winter storm warnings as another unrelated system is expected to bring severe weather to the Atlantic Provinces again on Saturday and Sunday.
The storm struck first on Wednesday in the US South, where it covered trees and power lines with as much as an inch of ice and caused traffic jams across the region.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley compared the damage to the aftermath of a hurricane.
One electric co-operative in the state lost 50 poles in the ice storm, compared to 21 in the last cyclone, officials said. Those still in the dark in the US South may wait several more days before electricity is restored.
The storm then moved up the East Coast, dumping heavy snow from North Carolina to Boston over a 24-hour period. Parts of New York state saw as much as 27in.
Washington-area offices of the US federal government were closed on Thursday to spare workers the dangerous commute.
At least 25 deaths have been blamed on the storm.
In the US, road conditions remained treacherous in some areas on Friday. Thirty people were injured, five severely, in a multiple vehicle pile-up near Philadelphia on Friday morning.
Officials said it would take many hours to clear damaged vehicles, including lorries. The crash spawned a traffic jam stretching for 5 miles.
Many schools remained closed in eight states from Virginia to Maine. Almost 1,700 flights were cancelled on Friday, and 6,500 a day earlier.
The foul weather also has delayed tens of thousands of deliveries of Valentine’s Day flowers.
Meanwhile, a sheriff in north-eastern Georgia declared in an apparently tongue-in-cheek Facebook post that the weather had rendered the Oconee County region a “No Valentines [sic] Day Zone”.
Sheriff Scott Berry declared all men in the area were exempt from having to buy chocolate or other gifts for their partners until next Tuesday.
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Japanese authorities warned Tokyo residents to stay indoors as a severe snow storm hit the capital.
Correspondents say it is the first such warning for the city in 13 years.
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled, roads closed and some train services suspended.
Japanese authorities warned Tokyo residents to stay indoors as a severe snow storm hit the capital
Local media has reported that at least 43 people have been injured because of snow-related accidents, with as much as 1.6 in of snow recorded on Saturday morning in Tokyo.
Weather forecasters have warned that with a rapidly developing low pressure front heading towards eastern Japan, more snow can be expected.
Last year parts of northern Japan had as much as 18ft of snow – a record-breaking amount that caused buildings to collapse under its immense weight.
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France and Italy are on flood alert as heavy rain brings chaos to parts of Europe.
Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes in the Italian city of Pisa as the Arno River threatened to burst its banks on Friday.
High seas are expected to cause widespread flooding along France’s Atlantic coast.
Meanwhile, deep snow drifts left dozens of people stranded in Serbia.
Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes in the Italian city of Pisa as the Arno River threatened to burst its banks
Local officials declared a state of emergency and deployed rescue teams to help travelers trapped in their vehicles. Snow storms and strong winds have been sweeping across Eastern Europe.
Italian media said a stretch of medieval wall measuring about 95ft in the town of Volterra, in the province of Pisa, collapsed as a result of heavy rain.
The French department of Finistere, in the west of the country, was placed on red alert as forecasters warned of huge waves and extensive flooding. Ten other French departments were also on alert for rising water levels.
At least two people died and scores had to be airlifted to safety after floods hit south-eastern France earlier this month.
Severe storms have been battering Europe for much of January.
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All 50 US states saw freezing temperatures as weather records have tumbled across North America.
The most extreme arctic blasts, blamed on a weather pattern known as the polar vortex, were said to have affected nearly 190 million people.
In Kentucky, an escaped prisoner turned himself in to get out of the cold.
Some parts of the Midwest hit -26C (-14F), as low as the Antarctic coast in winter, and much colder than the inside of a domestic freezer.
Temperature records were shattered in states across the US, including Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Michigan, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.
It was -17C (1F) in the small town of Hell, Michigan, prompting online jokes that the weather was so bad even hell had frozen over.
But it was Embarrass, Minnesota, that experienced the lowest temperature in the nation on Tuesday: -37C (-35F).
That was colder than readings recently recorded on the Red Planet by the Mars Rover.
All 50 US states saw freezing temperatures as weather records have tumbled across North America
A video of a meteorologist tossing a pot of boiling water into the air in Wisconsin, to demonstrate how it immediately turns to snow, quickly went viral on the internet and was widely imitated.
The extreme weather resulted in the usual travel chaos – nearly 2,700 US flights were cancelled on Tuesday.
More than 500 rail passengers on their way to Chicago were marooned overnight into Tuesday morning in northern Illinois on three Amtrak passenger trains after drifting snow and ice covered the tracks.
The big freeze was even testing the resolve of Canadians, no strangers to cold weather.
Temperatures in parts of Ontario fell to -30C (-22F), causing flights in and out of Pearson International Airport to be halted for several hours on Tuesday morning.
Roads in the cities of Toronto and Ottawa were coated in dangerous black ice.
Freezing temperatures were recorded in all 50 US states, including the usually balmy California and Florida.
Even tropical Hawaii experienced -7C (18F), reports the Associated Press news agency, although that was at the peak of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano.
Atlanta, Georgia, was 25 degrees below average for this time of year.
People in the Midwest are still digging out from two massive snow storms recently which dumped more than 2ft of snow.
A reprieve is expected soon, however, with forecasters predicting temperatures above freezing for much of the US in the coming days.
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A massive winter storm has blanketed the Northeast with up to 2 ft snow and ushered in dangerously cold temperatures Friday, leaving travelers stranded and a cutting a deadly path across several states.
The storm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday.
Authorities warned residents to remain indoors, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for snow removal.
Fatal traffic accidents occurred in New York, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Authorities said a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural western New York home.
And in suburban Philadelphia, as the storm approached, a worker at a salt storage facility was killed when a 100-foot-tall pile of road salt fell and crushed him. Falls Township police said the man was trapped while operating a backhoe.
The big storm followed closely the blueprint meteorologists drew up, slamming the Northeast overnight Thursday with as much as two feet of snow and sub-zero wind chills through Friday. The biting wind and blowing snow shut down interstates and airports alike and gave millions of school children a snow day.
John F. Kennedy Airport in New York was officially closed at 6:12 a.m. Friday and reopened four hours later, while Boston’s Logan International was effectively shut down, as well.
Interstate 84 in New York and the Long Island Expressway, closed at midnight as the storm roared in, remained so until 8 a.m.
The Northeast snowstorm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday
Snowfall reports varied widely, with New York City receiving 7 inches in some areas, Baltimore seeing 3 to 6 inches, Philadelphia closing in on 9 inches, Hartford 6 to 10 inches and Boston as much as 15 inches.
Some 20 inches fell on other parts of Massachusetts. Boxford, northwest of Boston, reported 23 inches.
The brutal storm blasted at least 22 states – stretching from Chicago through the New York tri-state region into New England – and affected an area home to more than 100 million people.
The high temperature in New York City reached the 20s on Friday during the day and was expected to drop to the single digits in the evening, with the wind chill making it feel well below zero.
“It’s deceptively cold outside. If you stay outside too long it could be dangerous,” New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, said at a news conference Friday morning, while hundreds of plows and salt spreaders continued to clear the roads.
Temperatures from upstate New York to Maine were below zero, and wind chills — the “feels like” effect — were minus-30 in some spots.
Across the Northeast, residents were fretting about the blast of bitter cold.
The weather was affecting air travel, with more than 2,600 flights cancelled Friday and another 8,800 delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
The delays and cancellations in storm-socked parts of the country created a logjam in other areas, including causing flights in Los Angeles to be delayed or scrapped Friday.
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A major snowstorm and blizzard-like conditions are expected to affect 100 million people across the Midwest and Northeast.
While the immediate focus was on snow – with up to 10 inches possible in New York City, possibly 18 inches burying New England, and more than 1,800 flights canceled – the cold behind the snowstorm could be crippling.
The high temperature in New York City will be in the teens on Friday during the day and drop to between 5 and 8 degrees in the evening, with the wind chill making it feel well below zero. Lows in Boston will be below zero. Maine could see the mercury drop to minus 30 after dark.
“That is a very, very dangerous set of circumstances,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said. He dismissed all state workers at 3 p.m. and urged residents to minimize time outside and be aware of frostbite and hypothermia symptoms.
A second wave of icy weather will hit the nation’s midsection by late Sunday, stretching from the upper Midwest to Kentucky and Tennessee, forecasters said.
Chicago will struggle to get above minus 8 and by Monday morning the wind will make it feel like it’s 40 below zero there.
Blizzard targets Northeast after pounding Midwest
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the Packers host an NFL playoff game Sunday evening, the low temperature could reach minus 18.
Larry Wittmers, a hypothermia expert at the University of Minnesota-Duluth medical school, said it’s not necessarily the coldest areas that face the most peril.
“True hypothermia cases turn up more often in more southern regions because people are not prepared and don’t know what to do,” Larry Wittmers said.
How long people can safely spend outside depends on how wet or windy it is and how they are dressed, he said. Shoveling snow or other exercise can be dangerous because sweat reduces the insulation capability of clothing, and consuming alcohol can speed heat loss and reduce awareness of the cold.
And even though record snowfall is not expected, the cold could make roads even more hazardous because the snow-melting homeowners and road crews use loses effectiveness at between 10 and 20 degrees.
Winter storm warnings and advisories were in effect in 22 states, stretched from Chicago through the New York tri-state region into New England and affecting an area home to more than 90 million people.
Flights were being canceled by the hundred at some of the nation’s busiest airports. Five hundred had been scrapped at Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy; Boston’s last departure was slated for 8:30 p.m.; almost 600 were off the boards at Chicago’s O’Hare, according to FlightAware.
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A winter storm that started in Washington has hit Texas hard on Saturday, causing event cancellations, travel hindrances and power outages.
Almost 50 weekend holiday events had been cancelled or postponed across Texas, including Sunday’s 44th annual Dallas Marathon, which was expected to draw 25,000 runners, many of whom had trained for months. The same weather system also forced the cancellation of the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis, which had been expected to include 20,000 competitors.
Four hundred flights remained grounded Sunday at Dallas Fort Worth International airport, according to airport officials, as crews scrambled to clear airport runways.
In Chicago, people started flooding into warming centers Saturday night as wind chills dropped below zero.
Some parts of Illinois were already slammed by a foot of snow, and Chicago would get 1 to 3 inches on Sunday, according to The Weather Channel.
A winter storm has hit Texas, causing event cancellations, travel hindrances and power outages
Residents in parts of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee also woke up to snow and ice on Sunday.
In Virginia, state Emergency Management spokeswoman Laura Southard said the storm had the potential to be an “historic ice event.”
Other areas of the US that could expect precipitation in the form of snow or freezing rain Sunday were the Middle Missouri Valley into the Great Lakes, the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, the Mid Atlantic and southern New England, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Mississippi, the Central Gulf Coast and the Tennessee Valley were all expected to dodge snowfall but could experience heavy, cold rain, the NWS predicted.
Residents in New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Baltimore were warned to be careful on the roads, as they could be hit by the first major snow accumulation of the season Sunday night. But the snow is expected to change to rain overnight, the Weather Channel reported, making the morning commute a messy one.
In the even colder areas of New England and upstate New York, even a slight snowfall could create Monday morning problems as it changes to freezing rain and slippery sheets of ice, according to The Weather Channel.
The storm is expected to move out to the Atlantic on Monday night, according to the NWS.
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Forecasters warned that an arctic blast will knock out power by coating parts of the South and Midwest with ice and send temperatures sinking by as much as 50 F Thursday.
The worst of the ice storm should stretch from Texas through Arkansas, the boot heel of Missouri and parts of Tennessee and Kentucky. Some places could get a half-inch or more of ice, enough to weigh down power lines and snap tree branches.
“Just prepare, plan and hunker down once this starts later tonight,” said Tom Niziol, an expert for The Weather Channel.
Kevin Roth, a lead meteorologist at the network, said that the region faced a “good 12 to 14 hours of freezing rain and ice” as an arctic air mass pushing south from Canada collides with moisture streaming up from the Gulf of Mexico.
Forecasters warned that an arctic blast will knock out power by coating parts of the South and Midwest with ice
The rough weather will be accompanied by jarring drops in the temperature. In Dallas, it was almost 80 F on Wednesday and will be in the 30s on Thursday night. In Lubbock, Texas, the high Tuesday was 77, and the forecast low for Friday night is 10.
A winter storm alert was posted for the Dallas area from 6 p.m. Thursday until 6 p.m. Friday.
Farther north and west, people faced extreme cold and snow. Temperatures could dip to minus 20 or worse in the northern midsection of the country, forecasters said. Snow totals could also approach 3 feet in northeastern Minnesota, where the weather has contributed to hundreds of traffic collisions around the state.
Colorado homeless shelters opened extra beds as temperatures in Denver were expected to drop just below zero through Friday but remain below 20 through the middle of next week. The storm dumped several inches of snow in Denver, and parts of Colorado’s mountains could get up to 3 feet by the end of the day.
Some Rocky Mountain ski resorts surpassed 100 inches of snow for the season on Wednesday.
Chicago could plunge from the mid-50s on Wednesday to the low teens by Friday night. Snow accumulations of 4 to 8 inches are possible from southern Missouri to northern Ohio through Friday night.
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The Farmers’ Almanac that hits newsstands Monday predicts a winter storm will hit the Northeast around the time the Super Bowl is played at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey.
The 197-year-old publication also predicts a colder-than-normal winter for two-thirds of the country and heavy snowfall in the Midwest, Great Lakes and New England.
“We’re using a very strong four-letter word to describe this winter, which is C-O-L-D. It’s going to be very cold,” said Sondra Duncan, managing editor.
Based on planetary positions, sunspots and lunar cycles, the almanac’s secret formula is largely unchanged since founder David Young published the first almanac in 1818.
Modern scientists don’t put much stock in sunspots or tidal action, but the almanac says its forecasts used by readers to plan weddings and plant gardens are correct about 80% of the time.
The Farmers’ Almanac predicts a winter storm will hit the Northeast around the time of Super Bowl
Last year, the forecast called for cold weather for the eastern and central U.S. with milder temperatures west of the Great Lakes. It started just the opposite but ended up that way.
Caleb Weatherbee, the publication’s elusive prognosticator, said he was off by only a couple of days on two of the season’s biggest storms: a February blizzard that paralyzed the Northeast with 3 feet of snow in some places and a sloppy storm the day before spring’s arrival that buried parts of New England.
Readers who put stock in the almanac’s forecasts may do well to stock up on long johns, especially if they’re lucky enough to get tickets to the Super Bowl on Feb. 2. The first Super Bowl held outdoors in a cold-weather environment could be both super cold and super messy, with a big storm due February 1 to 3, the almanac says.
Sondra Duncan said: “It really looks like the Super Bowl may be the Storm Bowl.”
The Maine-based Farmers’ Almanac, not to be confused with the New Hampshire-based Old Farmer’s Almanac, which will be published next month, features a mix of corny jokes, gardening tips, nostalgia and home remedies, like feeding carrots to dogs to help with bad breath and using mashed bananas to soothe dry, cracked skin in the winter.
Also in this year’s edition, editor Peter Geiger is leading a campaign to get people to ditch the penny, like Canada is doing.
Past campaigns have focused on moving Thanksgiving to harvest time in October, reconsidering “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem and changing the color of money. This time, Peter Geiger thinks he has a winner.
He wants people to donate pennies to charity and then lobby Congress to stop making them.
“They don’t get used very much. They get tossed. The only real use of a penny is if you save tens of thousands of them, then you can use them to help someone,” Peter Geiger said.
A severe winter storm that whipped up tornadoes in the southern US has brought heavy snow to the Midwest and threatens disruption in the east.
At least six people have been killed and authorities have told people to stay at home rather than brave freezing temperatures and treacherous roads.
A state of emergency has been declared in Mississippi and Alabama after the storm downed power lines.
Hundreds of flights have been grounded by snow and blizzards.
More delays are expected as the storm moves towards New York state and Maine, where as much as 18 inches (46 cm) of snow is expected in the next 24 hours.
The National Weather Service has warned of near-zero visibility in Buffalo, New York, where heavy snowfall is predicted to combine with high winds.
Weather warnings are in place from Florida and the Gulf Coast all the way up to New England.
A severe winter storm that whipped up tornadoes in the southern US has brought heavy snow to the Midwest and threatens disruption in the east
Little Rock, Arkansas, saw its first snow on Christmas Day in 83 years, while in neighboring Oklahoma seven inches of snow was blamed for a 21-vehicle pile-up on an interstate highway outside Oklahoma City.
Thirty-four tornadoes were reported in the southern states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday. A large section of a church roof in Mobile, Alabama, was ripped off by a twister.
Falling trees claimed the lives of two people in Texas and Louisiana. Deaths were also reported on the roads in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
More than 200,000 people are said to be without power.
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A strong winter storm last night dumped heavy snow on New York and New Jersey, also pummeled by Hurricane Sandy last week – even forcing FEMA to shut its doors to families in need.
FEMA shuttered its recovery centers, which were set up to offer assistance to those most affected by the monster storm, and the Staten Island office closed “due to bad weather”.
The Nor’easter rattled the East Coast with high winds and piles of wet, slushy snow on Wednesday – leaving thousands of Sandy victims without power just after it had been restored.
Adding to the mess, the three major airports in the tri-state area closed, commuter trains slowed service, and mass transit lurched to a halt, inflicting another round of misery on the city’s residents.
The storm dropped nearly four inches of snow in Central Park, which areas of southern New Jersey suffered more than 9 inches, the National Weather Service said.
Residents from Connecticut to Rhode Island were also slammed with up to six inches of snow, while areas of Massachusetts had a whopping eight inches.
Carrying gusts of 60 mph, the storm brought down tree limbs and electrical wires damaged by Sandy. Utilities across the two states in New York and New Jersey reported that nearly 60,000 customers who lost power in the superstorm lost it again.
“It’s Mother Nature’s one-two punch,” Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, told CNN.
“It’s testing the resolve and the grit of my state and my city and, obviously, this region.”
Airlines cancelled at least 1,300 U.S. flights in and out of the New York metropolitan area on Wednesday, causing a new round of disruptions that rippled across the country. And on the roads, icy conditions brought traffic to a crawl.
Despite this newly-inflicted chaos and slushy sidewalks across the tri-state area, schools across New York City opened on Thursday, including 43 schools still without power or damaged by Sandy.
Transit systems have also spluttered back to a start, with the Long Island Rail Road running all lines by 5:00 a.m. except for the Long Beach line.
The Nor’easter rattled the East Coast with high winds and piles of wet, slushy snow on Wednesday leaving thousands of Sandy victims without power just after it had been restored
Commuter traffic also reopened in the Holland Tunnel, where around 90,000 vehicles pass under the Hudson River between Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey.
Airlines at the city’s airports were also scheduled to resume flights on Thursday, but officials warned travelers to check with their carriers ahead of the storm.
The states’ utilities reported scattered outages on Thursday, with some customers complaining that they had just gotten their electricity back in the past two day or two, only to lose it again.
The Long Island Power Authority said 200,000 customers were without power, with around 50,000 losing it in the new storm.
Con Edison reported the storm knocked out electricity to about 60,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County. On Thursday, these customers included 21,000 in Queens, 7,000 in Brooklyn, 4,000 in the Bronx, 3,900 in Staten Island and 140 in Manhattan.
Public Service Electric & Gas reported 160,000 outages, including 40,000 caused by the new storm.
Jersey Central Power & Light has about 238,000 customers without power, while Atlantic City Electric reported more than 5,000 customers without power.
The Nor’easter also cut a feed to a substation briefly on Wednesday night, knocking out power to 8,000 customers around East Brunswick, New Jersey.
Ahead of the storm, authorities had warned communities they could be pummeled by this latest bout of bad weather and in New York, police went to low-lying areas with loudspeakers, urging residents to leave.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn’t issue mandatory evacuations, and many people stayed behind, some because they feared looting, others because they figured whatever happens couldn’t be any worse than what they have gone through already.
The city manager in Long Beach, New York, urged the roughly 21,000 people who ignored previous mandatory evacuation orders in the badly damaged barrier-island city to get out.
More than 600 residents were moved from three nursing homes and an adult care facility in the Rockaway area in Queens amid fears that the weather would knock out electricity.
Public works crews in New Jersey built up dunes to protect the stripped and battered coast.
All construction in New York City was halted – a precaution that needed no explanation after a crane collapsed last week in Sandy’s high winds and dangled menacingly over the streets of Manhattan.
Parks were closed because of the danger of falling trees. Drivers were advised to stay off the road after 5:00 p.m.
Forecasters had said the nor’easter would bring moderate coastal flooding, with storm surges of about three feet possible Wednesday into Thursday – far less than the 8 to 14 feet Sandy hurled at the region.
“I am waiting for the locusts and pestilence next,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had said.
“We may take a setback in the next 24 hours.”
Hurricane Sandy killed more than 100 people in 10 states, with most of the victims in New York and New Jersey.
On Tuesday, the death toll inched higher when a 78-year-old man died of a head injury, suffered when he fell down a wet, sandy stairwell in the dark, authorities said.
Long lines persisted at gas stations but were shorter than they were days ago.
At the peak of the outages from Sandy, more than 8.5 million customers lost power. Before the nor’easter hit, that number was down to 675,000, nearly all of them in New Jersey and New York.
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Tens of thousands of residents in New York and New Jersey have again lost power as a winter storm hit areas still recovering from Hurricane Sandy’s devastating impact.
Some people were again forced to leave their homes and public transport was affected.
Winds gusted at up to 60 mph (100 km/h) bringing down trees and power lines.
New Jersey state governor Chris Christie said: “I am waiting for the locusts and pestilence next.”
Power companies in the two states report more than 100,000 customers suffered power outages. Some 650,000 buildings were already without power one week after storm Sandy struck, killing more than 100 people.
But the damage from the latest storm, a northeaster, was less than had been feared.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said low-lying areas had not been flooded at high tide on Wednesday afternoon.
But Michael Bloomberg said he was still concerned about the security of those areas where flood defences had not yet been repaired.
Tens of thousands of residents in New York and New Jersey have again lost power as a winter storm hit areas still recovering from Hurricane Sandy’s devastating impact
He had closed parks and beaches and temporarily halted outdoor construction.
But he said there was no need for mandatory evacuations because the storm was not expected to be as strong as hurricane Sandy.
Long Island resident Rudi Schlachter, who was forced to move her family to the upper floors of their home due to severe flooding last week, said she was evacuating the area altogether now.
“All you need is a gale of wind driving a piece of wood into somebody’s window,” she said.
“We’re leaving; I don’t want my kids to see the water again.”
President Barack Obama spoke to the governor of New York and New Jersey on Wednesday, with the discussions focused on the continuing fuel shortages in the region.
Major airlines cancelled flights in and out of New York and New Jersey ahead of the storm.
So far 95,000 people have registered for emergency housing assistance in New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It added that it was ready to deploy additional resources if needed.
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As the East Coast is still reeling from the devastation brought on by Superstorm Sandy forecasters are already warning of a powerful new nor’easter storm front coming in from the Atlantic, bringing 45 mph gusts of wind mixed with snow and rain.
The beleaguered coast line is expected to face the storm from Tuesday to Thursday – potentially casting a shadow over Election Day.
At least New York City and the surrounding area may escape a beating, as forecasters expect most of the severe weather will hit northern New England – meaning it should land hundreds of miles north from where Sandy reached the continent.
However, New York and New Jersey can expect frigid winds and rain as hundreds of thousands remain without power and homeless.
A nor’easter is a powerful storm that thrives on cold air. Severe nor’easters can bring hurricane-force winds and blizzards.
AccuWeather expert senior meteorologist Henry Margusity said: “For millions of people still recovering from Superstorm Sandy, this is not welcome news.
“Thousands are projected to still be in the dark on Election Day, following Sandy’s impact.
“The weather pattern remains volatile for another storm to form on the East Coast, but nothing like Sandy. A storm that would be more normal for early November.”
Meanwhile, NBC News meteorologist Al Roker said: “This is just what we don’t need.
“You look at those winds coming counterclockwise, bringing in with it the potential for one to two more inches of rain, wind gusts of 45 miles per hour and wet snow inland just along the New York/New Jersey border. We’re talking about wet snow mixing in.
“The problem with this, with these winds of 45 miles per hour and already compromised beaches along New Jersey and Long Island waves of any consequence could cause big problems.”
He added: “It’s just a matter of how strong this system is going to be.”
East Coast line is expected to face a nor’easter winter storm from Tuesday to Thursday, potentially casting a shadow over Election Day
The European Centre Medium Range Forecast predicted the storm will form off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina on Tuesday.
EURO detected Hurricane Sandy and predicted its devastating landfall 8 days before it hit.
By Wednesday, the storm is expected to hook into southern New England.
Forecasters said that the storm will have nowhere near the strength of Sandy and the winds will likely not be powerful enough to be damaging.
However, the storm will bring more rain and bad weather to a region that has not even begun to recover from Monday’s onslaught.
“Snowfall would be confined to northern New England. Also, this system will not be anywhere as impactful as Sandy,” Tom Niziol, the winter weather expert for Weather.com, wrote.
Forecasters still don’t know the exact impact or path of the storm, and cautioned that it could hit other parts of the coast – potentially even New York.
Consolidated Edison, which handles New York City and the Hudson Valley, still has 650,000 customers without power – and said many of them won’t have electricity restored for another ten days.
Two of New Jersey’s largest utility companies reported more than 2million customers still in the dark.
What is a nor’easter?
The nor’easter is a winter storm conceived by the meeting of cold arctic air with the warmer ocean air from the Gulf Stream.
The storms usually develop from a low-pressure system in the south, typically in the Gulf of Mexico, and then pushed upward.
They often cause severe flooding along coastlines, erosion, and blizzard conditions – but just as dangerous is the bitter Arctic air that gets dragged along by the weather system.
They storms can come at any time of year, but are mainly seen in winter, where the conflicting wind conditions can quickly spiral into a hurricane.
Nor’easters usually bring massive amounts of precipitation, high winds and large waves and with a full moon, when tides are at their highest, the storm surge could reach as high as 6 to 11 feet.
“The total is greater than the sum of the individual parts,” said Louis Uccellini, the environmental prediction chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists about the dramatic weather.
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