Newsman: Parts of the Northeast were buried in up to 30 inches of snow Sunday as a “historic nor’easter” released its grip on the region while bitter cold and strong winds swept across the entire East Coast. Some sections of New York City were blanketed by more than foot of snow. The New York state’s biggest snowfall was recorded on Long Island at Islip Airport, with 24.7 inches.
Authorities on Long Island reported three storm-related deaths. Suffolk County police said an elderly man fell into a swimming pool while shoveling snow in Southhold and was pronounced dead after resuscitation attempts failed.
Nassau County officials said two men aged 53 and 75 died in the town of Syosset while shoveling snow.
The storm became a bomb cyclone when it rapidly strengthened, or underwent bombogenesis, between Friday and Saturday afternoon as it rolled up the East Coast, AccuWeather said.
At its peak, the storm pounded some parts of the state with up to 4 inches of snow an hour. More than 100,000 Massachusetts homes and businesses lost power, but more than half of those had power restored by Sunday afternoon. Dawn Brantley, director of the state Emergency Management Agency, said she hoped most of the power knocked out by the “historic Nor’easter” would be restored by Monday. Providence, Rhode Island, broke a daily snow record after reporting 18.8 inches Saturday.
In New York, the National Weather Service tweeted a warning for those digging out after the storm: “The day after our big nor’easter will be mostly sunny but 10-15 degrees below normal. Wind chills will make it feel like the teens for most, so bundle up when shoveling!”
Boston tied its record for biggest single-day snowfall on Saturday, with 23.6 inches, the National Weather Service said. Just 20 miles to the south, Stoughton, Massachusetts, recorded the most snow of the storm: 30.6 inches.
The storm stretched from Maine to the Carolinas. The cold reached even farther: The temperature in Tallahassee, Florida, dipped below 20 degrees for the first time in more than 10 years. The low-temperature Sunday at the Florida Keys Marathon International Airport reached 46, breaking the record for the date set more than 65 years ago.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 100% of New England was covered in snow. The average depth was 12.4 inches.
More than 100,000 lost power at the height of the storm, mostly in Massachusetts. That had dropped to about 35,000 by Sunday afternoon, mostly on hard-hit Cape Cod. No other states reported widespread outages.
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito spoke Sunday from the state Emergency Management Agency’s “bunker” in Framingham. She urged residents to stay off roads so plows could do their work unimpeded.
“The storm delivered just what experts predicted … with 20-30 inches, they were about right,” Polito said. “If you can stay home and enjoy the day and maybe take in some football games, then do that.”
Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, along with much of the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia all faced blizzard warnings Saturday.
Blizzard conditions were confirmed in New Jersey for Atlantic City, which measured 16 inches of snow, and Cape May, as well as the Delaware beaches, AccuWeather reported.
