Tag: northeast
Week Of Deadly Weather Ends With Record Rain In Northeast

Week Of Deadly Weather Ends With Record Rain In Northeast

By Alana Semuels and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — A week that started with deadly tornadoes ripping through the Midwest and South is ending with rain falling in almost biblical volumes in some states.

The major storm system causing the problems moved northward Thursday after causing 37 deaths and cutting a wide swath of destruction through Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi earlier in the week, and then deluging the Florida Panhandle and the Alabama shore Wednesday.

Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York reported heavy downpours, and television stations broadcast images of flooded cars and streets severely damaged by the water.

“The storm system that brought heavy rain to parts of the eastern U.S. over the past couple of days will continue to produce showers and thunderstorms from parts of the Mid-Atlantic southward to the Southeast coast on Thursday,” the National Weather Service reported. “The system will slowly move off the Mid-Atlantic Coast by Friday morning.”

As of 9:44 a.m., EDT, the storm had dumped 5.12 inches on New York’s Central Park. Parts of Nassau County got nearly 6 inches.

Commuters in New York had a tough ride into the city Thursday morning; a retaining wall at an apartment building collapsed in a mudslide, putting two tracks on the Hudson Line out of service. Speed restrictions were in place on a third rail line as crews worked to repair the track. Meanwhile, cars got stuck in flooded roads Wednesday night and had to be towed by police through the day.

The severe weather began on Sunday as tornadoes formed in Oklahoma. One person died there, and the inclement weather then spread to Arkansas, where 15 deaths were reported.

In all, at least 65 tornadoes hit the United States as a result of the storm system, according to a preliminary estimate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At least 37 deaths in eight states were blamed on the storm.

At least 16 states, most in the South and the Midwest, were hit by the storm system in some way, officials said.

After the tornadoes, fierce rain hammered Florida and Alabama in what officials described as a deluge that occurs perhaps once every 25 years. Pensacola, Fla., saw about 22 inches, about a third of its annual rainfall, in a 24-hour period.

There was no immediate damage estimates from the widespread damage destruction, which included toppled buildings, roads blown apart and vehicles destroyed.

Governors in the affected states have issued declarations of emergency and are expected to seek federal aid.

U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr.com 

Major Snowstorm Slams Northeastern U.S.

Major Snowstorm Slams Northeastern U.S.

Washington (AFP) – The northeastern U.S. shivered amid heavy snowfall and far below average temperatures Wednesday in a storm that grounded thousands of flights and triggered traffic chaos.

The nasty weather with its bone-chilling gusts and heavy snow stretched from Washington to New England. The Midwest was hit hard, too.

Taking into account the wind chill factor, the temperature in Chicago plummeted to minus 20 Fahrenheit (-28 Celsius), the Chicago Tribune said.

In the nation’s largest city, the Tuesday evening commute home in New York was a mess and the city was expected to get as many as 14 inches (35 cm) of snow by Wednesday morning.

“It’s horrible. Snow is cute for only a little bit,” Mary Catherine Hughes, standing by a subway stop with an umbrella rendered useless in fierce wind, told The New York Times.

The city’s new mayor Bill de Blasio urged people to stay home say road crews could clear streets.

Downtown Washington fell eerily silent after the federal government, seeing the swift-moving storm approaching, closed its doors and told civil servants — who already had the day off Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday — to stay home Tuesday.

On Wednesday, federal agencies were to open two hours late. Employees could also take unscheduled leave, and those that can were allowed to work from home.

The nation’s capital is famous for cowering in the face of even a few flakes but Tuesday’s storm seemed to justify a shutdown.

Many offices and schools followed suit, as 20 mile (32 kilometer) per hour winds whipped through the U.S. capital’s unusually quiet streets.

Most area schools, in the city and neighboring Maryland and Virginia, were to remain closed again Wednesday.

Washington’s Metro public transit system reported Tuesday half as many riders as on a typical weekday. Business was so slow that many restaurants used Twitter to woo customers with bargain-priced drinks while others offered customers 2-for-1 deals.

In Philadelphia, as of early evening Tuesday, the official total at Philadelphia International Airport was 11 inches of snow, a record for the day January 21.

The “storm system will strengthen overnight in the Atlantic waters off the East Coast, spreading heavy snow and strong wind into coastal sections of New England and the Northeast,” the National Weather Service said.

Temperatures across the eastern part of the country Wednesday will be 10 to 25 degrees below average, amid bitter wind chills, it warned.

FlightAware, a website that monitors air traffic in real time, said nearly 3,000 flights into, out of or within the United States had been canceled Tuesday.

The lion’s share of affected flights involved busy airports in the New York, Philadelphia and Washington areas.

New York mobilizes more than 1,700 plows

Seven inches (18 centimeters) of snow had fallen at Washington’s Dulles International Airport while some 11 inches were reported at the Philadelphia International Airport, according to AccuWeather, a private forecasting service.

Accumulations of six to 12 inches were expected over the mid-Atlantic to southeastern New England, it said.

National rail company Amtrak said it would operate “a modified schedule” Wednesday on its Northeast Corridor line between Washington and Boston, as well as on two other routes in the hard-hit region.

States of emergency were declared there, as well as in New Jersey and Delaware, according to CNN.

More than 1,700 plows were to be mobilized in New York Tuesday night to clear up to 10 inches of snow, it reported.

Across the Hudson River, New Jersey went ahead with its mid-day inauguration ceremony for re-elected governor Chris Christie, who is battling allegations he used his office to bully political foes.

But an evening gala on historic Ellis Island in New York Harbor to mark the start of his new term in office was scrapped due to the storm.

Schools across the Northeast either closed for the day or told parents to expect their youngsters to be dismissed from class earlier than usual. Closures in many areas were extended through Wednesday. Meanwhile, courthouses called off proceedings in the afternoon.

What the National Weather Service called a “fast moving but potent” snowstorm had earlier dumped seven inches of snow on airports in the Chicago area, before temperatures fell to the freezing level.

AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand