The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: blizzard
New York Rebounds After Blizzard, Washington Shuts Down Government

New York Rebounds After Blizzard, Washington Shuts Down Government

By Frank McGurty and Ian Simpson

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) — New York City emerged on Sunday from a massive blizzard that paralyzed much of the U.S. East Coast, while snowy gridlock gripped the nation’s capital and surrounding areas, where federal, state and local offices and schools planned to remain closed on Monday.

Midtown Manhattan sprang back to life on a bright and sunny Sunday as residents and tourists rejoiced in the warming sunlight, digging out buried cars, heading to Broadway shows and cavorting in massive drifts left by New York City’s second-biggest snowstorm in history.

In Washington, where a traffic ban was still in effect, the recovery got off to a slower start, with the entire transit system closed through Sunday. The Office of Personnel Management said federal government offices in the Washington area will be closed on Monday, along with state and local government offices and schools.

Even so, many people were out in the street. Some skied and snowboarded down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial until security officials moved them on.

The entire region seemed to breathe a sigh of relief after what was unofficially known as Winter Storm Jonas left at least 20 dead in several states.

“For us, snow is like a normal winter,” said Viola Rogacka, 21, a fashion model from Poland, walking with a friend through New York’s Times Square. “It’s how it should look like.”

Theater shows reopened on Broadway after the blizzard forced them to go dark on Saturday on the recommendation of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“We still have some areas that we have to do a lot more work on. But we’ve come through it pretty well,” de Blasio said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think tomorrow is going to be pretty good. We think we’ll be broadly up and running again at the city tomorrow.”

HISTORIC STORM

The blizzard was the second-biggest snowstorm in New York City history, with 26.8 inches (68 cm) of snow in Central Park by midnight on Saturday, just shy of the record 26.9 inches (68.3 cm) set in 2006, the National Weather Service said.

Thirteen people were killed in weather-related car crashes in Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia on Saturday. One person died in Maryland and three in New York while shoveling snow. Two died of hypothermia in Virginia, and one from carbon monoxide poisoning in Pennsylvania, officials said.

Reinsurer Munich Re said it was too early to estimate losses from the storm.

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a travel ban on New York City-area roads and on Long Island at 7 a.m. ET on Sunday. A state of emergency declared by Cuomo was still in place.

Most bus and subway services operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were up and running again by 9 a.m. ET, officials said. The agency was working on restoring full service on Sunday.

The Metro-North rail line, which serves suburbs north and east of New York City, was restored on Sunday afternoon and was operating on a Sunday schedule. Service remained suspended on the Long Island Rail Road.

Commuters who rely on the Long Island Rail Road to get to work on Monday may need to look for alternatives as the railroad works to restore service. Crews were working on Sunday to remove snow from an intersection near train tunnels to Manhattan.

A spokeswoman for the New York Stock Exchange said the market planned to open as usual on Monday. City schools also were set to open on Monday.

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, grocery store shoppers picked their way through brown slush and over compressed snow and ice as they balanced their bags in their hands.

Drivers tried their best to free cars that were encased in snow, but often found themselves spinning their wheels as they tried to get on the road.

Outside the city, suburban New Jersey resembled Vermont.

“I’m not sure where I am right now because of all the snow,” said Patty Orsini, 56, a marketing analyst from Maplewood, New Jersey, at the nearby South Mountain Reservation. “It’s nice to be out today in the sun. Yesterday it was scary to be outside,” she said as she clipped on her cross-country skis.

RECORDS SET

The National Weather Service said 22.4 inches (57 cm) fell in Washington at the National Zoo, and Baltimore-Washington International Airport notched a record 29.2 inches (74.2 cm). The deepest regional total was 42 inches (106.7 cm) at Glengarry, West Virginia.

Washington, which has a poor track record in dealing with snow, seemed unready for a return to its Monday routine after its largest snowstorm in decades, with major airports, public buses and subways completely shut down all Sunday. Metro trains will begin limited service starting at 7 a.m. on Monday.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser earlier issued a public apology for commuting headaches caused by the blizzard, which locals dubbed “Snowzilla.” She said crews had worked all night and Sunday on plowing main roads and were just now getting to secondary roadways and neighborhoods.

Public schools were closed on Monday across much of the Washington and Baltimore region, with some shuttered through Tuesday. All federal government offices will be closed on Monday and the U.S. House of Representatives canceled its voting until Feb. 1 and the Pentagon canceled all its events.

Nevertheless, walkers, sledders, some cars and the occasional cross-country skier ventured into the dazzling white under a bright sun.

Paul Schaaf, a 49-year-old helicopter pilot for Children’s Hospital in Washington, was biking 7-1/2 miles (12 km) to work for his overnight shift and planned to bike back to Arlington, Virginia, on Monday morning.

“I have to get into work no matter what. And the best way to do it is on my bicycle with steel-studded snow tires,” he said. “Nothing stops me.”

One Washington food store, Broad Branch Market, opened with a handful of employees, and was trying to organize volunteers to shovel the sidewalks of the elderly and others who needed help.

“I have a lot of people on the list but I have yet to have any kids sign up to work today,” said owner Tracy Stannard.

At Dupont Circle, hundreds gathered to pelt each other with snowballs. Jomel Nichols, a tourist from Kansas City, Missouri, accompanying three exchange students and her daughter, was plastered with snow.

“They all turned on me, as teenagers will do,” she told Reuters Television.

FLIGHTS CANCELED

More than 3,900 flights were canceled on Sunday, and some 900 were called off for Monday, according to aviation website FlightAware.com.

Among New York-area airports, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia were open, with limited flight activity expected on Sunday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

About 150,000 customers in North Carolina and 90,000 in New Jersey lost electricity during the storm but most service had been restored by Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday, moderate coastal flooding was still a concern in the Jersey Shore’s Atlantic County, said Linda Gilmore, a county public information officer.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert and Susan Cornwell in Washington, David Gaffen, Sam Forgione, Barbara Goldberg and Robert MacMillan in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Bill Rigby and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sandra Maler)

Photo: Fresh snow covers the steps of the U.S.Capitol in Washington January 23, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Storm Warnings Grip 17 States, Record Lows Expected

Storm Warnings Grip 17 States, Record Lows Expected

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Not content just to torture New England with blizzard after blizzard, Mother Nature is expected to unleash heavy snow and uncharacteristically bitter cold on the Midwest, the South and the East this week.

The governors of Virginia and North Carolina declared states of emergency Monday as a winter storm, lumbering their direction, dumped almost a foot of snow on parts of the Midwest and ice and sleet from Tennessee to Georgia.

As of midday Monday, winter storm warnings touching 17 states and affecting millions of residents stretched from Missouri to New Jersey.

Parts of Kentucky were still bracing for more than a foot of snow by the end of Monday, which would give the Bluegrass State a small taste of the weather that has hammered Boston in recent weeks, burying the city beneath several feet of snowy misery. Air traffic into and out of Louisville’s airport was significantly hampered Monday, as it was in Nashville and Memphis.

Worse yet, temperatures in the East will be 20 to 30 degrees lower than average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

“This will especially be the case after yet another arctic cold front moves through after the winter storm departs the East Coast,” the National Weather Service said in a Monday forecast advisory. “Numerous record low temperatures are expected!”

In Michigan on Sunday, the dramatic cold already set or tied record lows of minus 21 degrees in Gaylord, minus 23 in Pellston and minus 25 at the Houghton County Airport.

The freeze spread to Pennsylvania on Monday morning, where a low of minus 32 degrees was reported in Chandlers Valley, and Harrisburg’s much milder zero-degree low tied a 110-year-old record, the weather service reported. The cold spurred school closures in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

A cold front tagging along with Monday’s Midwestern snow storm also brought an unwelcome display of contrasts across the South.

As the cold swept through Victoria, Texas, on Monday morning, temperatures fell from about 70 degrees to 48 degrees in less than half an hour, or almost a degree a minute.

In Mississippi, the temperature in Hattiesburg was 72 degrees at the same time that the temperature in Oxford — more than 200 miles north — was 32 degrees.

By Tuesday morning, single-digit lows are expected as for eastern states north of the Appalachian Mountains, and as far south as Missouri and Kentucky.

California, as per usual, is expected to remain warm and dry, with no rain to help alleviate the drought.

Photo: A pedestrian crosses Main Street as heavy snow falls  across central Kentucky on Monday, Feb. 15, 2015 in Lexington, Ky. (Mark Cornelison/Lexington Herald-Leader/TNS)

Another Snowstorm Wallops Northeast; Thousands Of Flights Canceled

Another Snowstorm Wallops Northeast; Thousands Of Flights Canceled

By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

It didn’t take a groundhog to predict six more weeks of winter as the second major storm in a week created near whiteout conditions in much of New England on Monday after dumping more than a foot and a half of snow in the Chicago region and spreading a blanket of thick snow through the Midwest.

The storm was expected to bring up to 16 inches of fresh snow to the Boston area, when the precipitation stops on Monday, Groundhog Day, less than 24 hours after the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. Boston officials on Monday announced that the victory parade would be held on Tuesday, proving that the post office is not the only institution to brave snow, sleet and rain.

The latest storm cut a wide swath through the Midwest, bringing 19.3 inches to Chicago, the city’s fifth-largest storm ever. About 2,400 customers remained without power Monday morning, down from the 51,000 who lost electricity when the storm began.

More than 5,300 flights have been canceled from Sunday through Monday because of the storm, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Schools in states across the upper tier of the nation were closed. Four deaths related to traffic or shoveling were reported in Ohio, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Detroit reported its largest snowfall in four decades. The National Weather Service said 16.7 inches fell at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus on Sunday and Monday, the third-largest storm ever and the largest since a 19.3-inch storm in December 1974.

Also in Michigan, the Battle Creek area got 12 to 18 inches and Ann Arbor, 14.1 inches.

From the Midwest, the storm churned its way East, bringing six to 10 inches to the Buffalo region and eight to 14 inches in the Albany area.

In downstate New York, Long Island, especially hit hard last week, was bracing for an additional three to five inches.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned residents of snow and ice, but the output was expected to be less than last week when nine to 15 inches fell on different parts of the city.

A blizzard brought up to three feet of snow to some parts of Massachusetts last week. On Monday, the state planned to work a normal day despite predictions of up to 16 more inches of snow. Schools in many areas including Boston were closed.

“We are very concerned about this current storm and its implications. Working with city departments and our private partners, we will take every precaution necessary to keep our residents safe,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “I ask that every Boston resident look out for their neighbor, whether it be in the home next door, or on our city’s streets.”

“I’d encourage everyone to stay off the roads today,” Walsh said.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil reportedly saw his shadow, indicating six more weeks of winter, according to legend.

The Weather Service routinely notes that the Groundhog Day test has no predictive value, though it spawned a hit movie and rodent imitators around the country.

Photo: David Cislinski, whose car is buried in snow parked on Stockton Drive, tries to shovel it out despite high winds and blowing snow on Feb. 1, 2015 in Chicago. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Cartoon: Snow Storm Shuts Down New York

Cartoon: Snow Storm Shuts Down New York