‘ Bomb cyclone’ blasts New England
Winds send Boston tides into the streets; a new shot of cold on the way
A violent winter storm dubbed a “bomb cyclone” roared into New England with hurricane- like wind gusts Thursday, pushing high tide to nearrecord levels and stranding inundated motorists on downtown Boston streets.
The storm raced up the East Coast, forcing school closings, canceling flights and knocking out power to thousands.
Scattered fatalities were reported, including a car passenger who died after a vehicle couldn’t stop at the bottom of a steep, snow- covered hill and slammed into a commuter train on its way to Philadelphia.
Around Boston, the National Weather Service reported that howling winds sent the icy high tide to historic levels. On Boston’s Atlantic Avenue and other areas of the city, severe flooding forced emergency response teams to rescue motorists with boats.
Winter weather watches and warnings remained in place along hundreds of miles from the Mid- Atlantic to northern Maine.
Forecasters offered little respite from the cold weather for the weekend, predicting a brutal blast of new arctic air from Canada that could break records in more than two dozen cities and bring wind chills as low as 40 degrees below zero this weekend.
Snow was on the ground in every state along the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday, from Florida to Maine, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
New York’s JFK International Air- port was shut down for several hours because of the weather. New York’s LaGuardia Airport announced that more than 90% of its flights Thursday would be canceled.
Nationwide, about 4,900 flights were canceled Thursday, Flight Aware reported. And 77,000 customers were without power in several states, CBS News said.
Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts warned of possible lengthy and widespread power outages.
More than 5,500 homes and businesses lost power Thursday morning in Provincetown, Mass., on the outermost tip of Cape Cod, which was being lashed with hurricane- force wind gusts, the Eversource electric utility said. Much of that power was restored by early afternoon.
Gusts of up to 76 mph and 75 mph were reported Thursday on Nantucket and Cape Cod, respectively.
The National Weather Service said on Twitter it’s getting “inundated” with reports of coastal flooding all along the eastern coast of Massachusetts. “Some of the worst in recent history being observed in Boston,” the service said.
The cold stretched south to Florida, where iguanas were reported dropping out of trees as temperatures dipped below 40 degrees.
The storm strengthened at an astonishing rate, surpassing the meteorological criteria to be considered a “bomb cyclone,” according to the Capital Weather Gang.
Bombogenesis is said to occur when a storm’s central barometric pressure drops at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. The lower the pressure, the more powerful the storm.
This storm’s pressure dropped 53 millibars in 21 hours, Weather Channel’s Jon Erdman said, ranking it among the most explosive East Coast storms ever.