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ClimateUnited States of America

Winter storm in US Northeast disrupts flights, schools

February 14, 2024

The storm left numerous spots including Farmington, Connecticut, and Sussex, New Jersey with more than 30 centimeters of snow. Thousands of homes reported power outages.

https://p.dw.com/p/4cMz5
Commuters drive through snow in Norwood, New Jersey, on February 13.
Tracking websites showed thousands of homes and businesses in Pensylvania and New Jersey were without powerImage: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images

A fast-moving and powerful winter storm dumped significant snowfalls in parts of New England andNew York on Tuesday, disrupting school and travel plans.

Around 13 million people remained under a winter storm warning until 7 p.m. local time as the Nor'easter — a term for a type of large-scale extratropical cyclone that can form in the western North Atlantic Ocean — pummeled the region with heavy snowfall and winds of up to 60 miles per hour (up to 96 kilometers per hour), according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

By midday, the storm had left places including Farmington, Connecticut and Sussex, New Jersey under a foot (just over 30 centimeters) of snow, the NWS said.

Over 1,100 flights to and from New York's LaGuardia, Boston Logan International and Newark Liberty International airports were either delayed or canceled, according to Flightaware.com.

At least 130,000 homes and businesses were out of power in Pensylvania, New Jersey and even a few in New York and New England, according to tracking website poweroutage.us.

In New York City, where it stopped snowing by midday, people saw three to eight inches of snowfall depending on the area.  

Children sled at a hill in Brooklyn's Prospect Park as a large winter storm makes its way across the area
The snowfall in NYC created conditions for sledding and snowball fights, albeit brieflyImage: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Snow disrupts roads, school and travel

More than 2,000 trucks and snowplows were working to salt and clear streets, New York city officials said during a briefing, urging property owners to clear snow from the sidewalks outside their homes.

"NYC remains under a Travel Advisory today as temperatures drop and snow melts, leading to possibility of icy roads," the city's emergency management agency said on social media, urging drivers to exercise caution. 

A man clears snow from the sidewalk of a street in New York
Authorities warned residents to exercise caution while workers scrambled to clear the streets and sidewalks in NYCImage: Jorge Estrellado/TheNews2/IMAGO

School districts across the region canceled in-person classes for the day, including New York City, which was holding classes remotely for its 1 million students. However, teachers and students faced difficulty logging into the remote learning facility.

NYC's Public Schools account apologized online for the difficulties, attributing the technical error to lack of capacity.

"We are doing everything we can to get this right and we have over 1 million students, teachers, and users that have been able to log in since this morning," authorities said. 

Meanwhile campaigners for a special election to succeed former Congressman George Santos offered voters free rides to the polls as the storm threatened to hamper turnout in an irregular vote where drumming up participation was already a concern

mk/msh (Reuters, AP)