by A winter storm marched up the US East Coast yesterday, delivering a disruptive blow to transportation systems and threatening a swath of the country that is home to more than 50 million people.
By mid-afternoon, the Northeastern had brought a wintry mix to Washington and wind-whipped snow to New York City, parts of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The sprawling system could dump up to 60cm (2 feet) of snow in an area stretching from eastern Pennsylvania to New York’s Catskill Mountains, forecasters said.
Parts of Virginia and North Carolina will be blanketed with a thin later of ice while areas in the Mid-Atlantic region closer to the coast will get only rain before the storm moves out to sea from Boston later today, they said.
Officials throughout the area urged motorists to stay off the roads and residents to stay home.
New Jersey Transit drove home that point by suspending bus and rail service in the northern part of the state after yesterday’s evening rush hour.
With the first flakes landing in the New York area by mid-afternoon, the region’s three busy airports reported that 20% to 30% of flights had already been cancelled and more were expected as accumulations mounted.
Widespread power outages were also possible because of strong winds, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said.
Normally, major winter storms in the forecast meant children could count on a getting a day off of school, an especially welcome relief for those facing exams.
But pandemic-induced remote learning has made the “snow day” less of a sure thing.
New York City schools, which just recently reopened their classrooms after a brief pandemic-induced shutdown, were set to go fully remote today when students are likely to wake up to more than a foot of snow on the ground, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
“I know we all grew up with the excitement of snow days, but this year is different,” Mr de Blasio said on Twitter.
The city said it would suspend its coronavirus testing programme for nearly a day, but Mr de Blasio said testing and the city’s Covid-19 vaccination programme would remain on schedule.
Meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the forecast could have been worse if not for the brisk speed at which the system was traveling.
With winds expected to gust up to 80km/h, the storm snow could significantly reduce visibility and down trees and power lines, the weather service said.
“Typically, when you have a big snowstorm like this, you can have snow totals one to two inches plus per hour,” Oravec said by phone.
