The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Northeast winter storm shuts schools, knocks out power
The start of a winter storm with heavy, wet snow caused a plane to slide off a taxiway and led to hundreds of school closings, canceled flights and thousands of power outages in parts of the Northeast on Tuesday.
The storm’s path included parts of New England, upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey. Snow totals by the time it winds up today were expected to range from a few inches to a few feet, depending on the area.
“This is shaping up to be a unique winter storm for our small state in that there will be big differences in snowfall amounts depending on where you are located,” said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who ordered all executive branch state office buildings closed. “Some towns may receive a significant snowfall total, while others may receive a fraction of that amount or maybe even just rain.”
The storm in the Northeast came as California faced warnings of more flooding, potentially damaging winds and difficult travel conditions on mountain highways as a new atmospheric river pushed into the swamped state early Tuesday. So far this winter, California has been battered by 10 previous atmospheric rivers, long plumes of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, as well as powerful storms fueled by arctic air that produced blizzard conditions.
A Delta Air Lines plane veered off a paved surface as it taxied for takeoff from a Syracuse, New York, airport Tuesday morning. Flight 1718, which was bound for New York City’s Laguardia Airport, slid into a grassy area north of the runway, forcing passengers off the plane and onto buses back to the terminal, according to airport officials. No one was injured and the airport remained open.
More than 400 flights traveling to, from or within the U.S. were canceled Tuesday, with Boston and New York City area airports seeing the highest number of scrubbed flights, according to the flight tracking website Flightaware.
The snowfall totals will be among the highest of the season, said meteorologist Andrew Orrison of the weather service office in College Park, Maryland.
The weather service said expected snow totals from the storm, which is forecast to wind up today, range from a foot to 18 inches in higher elevations in Massachusetts, to 4 to 6 inches in Boston. Higher elevations in southwest New Hampshire could get up to 2 feet.