Two die as tempest hits northeastern US

Nearly two-thirds of the flights into or out of the three major New York area airports have been cancelled

The fiercest snowstorm of the winter slammed the northeastern US on Thursday, leaving a foot (30cm) of snow in places, cancelling thousands of flights and shutting down schools. At least two deaths were blamed on the storm.

The storm, which came a day after temperatures had been a springlike 10 to 16C, had wind gusts up to 80km/h and left roads and sidewalks dangerously slick in densely populated cities such as New York, Boston and Hartford, Connecticut.

The storm’s winds reached as far south as Virginia, where a truck driver died after his tractor-trailer was blown off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Tom Anderson, the facility’s deputy director, said.

A New York City doorman died while shovelling snow as he slipped and fell down a flight of stairs, crashing into a window that cut his neck, police reported.

Some areas experienced “thunder snow,” violent bursts of weather featuring both snow and lightning.

Nearly two-thirds of the flights into or out of the three major New York-area airports were cancelled, as were 69 per cent of those at Boston Logan International Airport, according to Flightaware.com.

Nationwide, about 4,000 flights were cancelled and 5,700 delayed. “The roads are dangerous,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters. “if you don’t have to be out, don’t be out.”

David Hassan, 50, attested to the ugliness of the weather as he packed up his mobile coffee cart in New York’s Times Square. “I don’t like coming out in this weather but ... I have to work,” Hassan said as he prepared for the two-hour trip back to his home in Parsippany, New Jersey.

New York received about a foot of snow, while Boston was bracing for up to 20 inches.

Many schools systems were closed in the area, and Boston schools would be closed yesterday, Mayor Marty Walsh said.

Many government offices were also shuttered, with Massachusetts and Connecticut ordering non-emergency workers to stay home.

Blizzard warnings were in effect for the New York’s eastern Long Island suburbs, southern Connecticut and Rhode Island and the Massachusetts coast.

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Reuters A man walks with an umbrella through snowfall in the Harlem section of upper Manhattan in New York, on Thursday.