After the storm, the big freeze
The powerful winter storm that crashed into the East Coast of the US this week, dropping snow from Florida to Maine, is gone. What it left behind is cold. So, so much cold.
Temperatures plummeted across the eastern US yesterday in the wake of the massive ‘‘bomb cyclone’’ storm that had rapidly intensified as it journeyed along the coastline.
The National Weather Service said the ‘‘Arctic outbreak’’ would keep temperatures well below average across the northeastern US, which could lead to recordbreaking lows.
Forecasters said high temperatures would struggle to get above the single digits in much of New England. Frigid temperatures would also extend into the southern US along the eastern Gulf Coast and even in central Florida, the weather service said.
Authorities had been warning about the frigid cold this week. Even as snow pummelled major population centres, they said their concerns remained the brutal temperatures set to follow.
‘‘We’re all hardy New Englanders, but it’s pretty important for everybody to pay attention and be prepared,’’ Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said.
In Jacksonville, Florida, authorities issued a hard freeze warning. With the wind chill, Atlanta felt frozen as people headed to work there. People in Washington, DC described the cold as ‘‘air that slaps you in the face and must be respected’’.
Across New England, wind chills were expected to remain well below zero. In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, painful wind chills plunged the temperatures below zero, and all three areas were under wind chill advisories.
‘‘We expect tough conditions for days to come, particularly in terms of the cold,’’ New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said. ‘‘This is a very sobering reality.’’
Many of these areas woke yesterday to mounds of snow still on the ground, the results of the storm that had spent the previous two days lashing the eastern seaboard.
The storm dropped more than 30 centimetres of snow in areas stretching from North Carolina to New Hampshire, with 45cm reported in parts of Maine and
New Jersey.
The storm hit millions with a combination of heavy snowfall, gusting winds and coastal flooding. Schools and offices shut down, and roads were closed because of ice and snow.
For a time, all flights through both LaGuardia and John F Kennedy International airports in New York were suspended.
Authorities have urged people to stay off the roads because of the icy conditions. At least three deaths have been attributed to the storm.
In North Carolina, which saw 30cm of snow in some parts of the state, Governor Roy Cooper said three men had died, all of them in trucks that overturned. State troopers had responded to more than 1000 calls since the storm began, more than 700 of them involving car collisions.
‘‘With the freezing temperatures, the black ice will be an ongoing concern through the weekend,’’ Cooper said. ‘‘You can make the job of our first responders and our road crews a lot easier by staying off the roads unless it is absolutely necessary.’’
The storm began quietly enough in some places. In Boston, it began with a gentle dusting of snowflakes during an already bitterly cold winter.
‘‘This isn’t bad,’’ said Richie Bianchino, 30, after he parked his car at a covered mass transit garage. He was wearing a hoodie and no gloves. ‘‘We’ve just had a bunch of days near zero. This feels good.’’
The calm didn’t last. As the day wore on, the storm began to lash the city, ultimately leaving more than 30cm of snow on the ground there – and more in other parts of the area – and knocking out power to more than 24,000 customers at one point.
The storm also brought powerful wind gusts – topping 65kmh at Boston’s airport and reaching as high as 122kmh on Nantucket – and caused what officials described as a ‘‘historic high tide’’ to flood coastal towns.
Water flowed down the streets in Scituate, Marshfield, Plum Island, Dorchester and other Massachusetts communities, and police and firefighters carried people out of stranded cars and low-lying apartments.
The National Weather Service said the tide swelled so high in Boston on Friday that it broke a record set during the Blizzard of 1978, becoming the highest recorded since 1921.
Before the storm’s impact intensified in Boston, some enjoyed the icy weather.
Brian Robinson, who was escorting a group of high school students from West Texas on a class trip to the city, wanted them to soak up the frigid climate while they were there.
‘‘We want as much snow as we can get and as cold as it can get,’’ Robinson said. ‘‘It’s the experience.’’
The students shared the enthusiasm. ‘‘I’ve never seen snow before!’’ exclaimed Erynne Turner,
18. ‘‘We made a snow angel this morning,’’ said Hannah Glass, also
18.