Snowstorm brings more than 4 inches to some hill towns
Early coating leads to power outages for at least 3,500
Friday’s autumn snowstorm coated trees and roads with snow and knocked out power to more than 3,500 after an unusually early burst of winter weather as the remnants of Hurricane Zeta and a cold front collided in the Northeast.
Snow started early in the morning and continued to fall through part of the afternoon, giving the northern half of the state an early coating of an inch of snow or more and briefly knocking out power to a few thousand Eversource customers.
Hill towns received the most substantial accumulation with 4 to 4.5 inches falling in Canton and Burlington up to Norfolk, according to preliminary reports submitted to the National Weather Service. The highest totals included one report of 5.6 inches of snow in Coventry and 5.1 in Pomfret Center.
Less fell the further south the storm moved across the state, with just 1 inch in Hartford and Wethersfield, and little to no accumulation along the coast.
Damage from the storm included power outages in some parts of the state, including almost 1,500 customers in Guilford, where there were reports of a fallen tree and a fire, and almost all of those were restored by the end of the afternoon, the utility reported.
Just 500 were still without power by Friday evening, with no more than a few dozen in any single rural or suburban town affected by outages.
Temperatures plummeted late Friday, prompting officials in Hartford to open a warming center overnight Friday and overnight Monday at the Willie Ware Community Center on Windsor Street, with mask wearing and social distancing guidelines in place.
“We’re seeing our first few very cold nights of the year over the next few days, and so we’re opening this emergency warming center to make sure people don’t need to stay out in the freezing weather,” said Mayor Luke Bronin.
In addition to snow falling on trees with leaves on them, weighing them down, wind gusts of up to 26 mphwere expected. Either could cause power outages.
But outages were not expected to be as widespread as in the pre-Halloween snowstorm of 2011, when heavy snow broke tree branches all over the state.
After the snow will come the cold: Friday’s temperature in the 30s dropped to the mid-20s overnight. It will climb to the mid-40s on Saturday, Halloween, and it will be sunny, the weather service said.
The thermometer will drop to the 30s Saturday night, Sunday night and Monday night.
There’s a chance of showers Sunday, but the temperature will be warmer, in the mid-50s. The highs on Monday and Tuesday — Election Day — will be in the 40s.
Both Monday and Tuesday will be mostly sunny.