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New York Travelers Face Delays as Winds Slow Clear-Up (Update1)
2010-12-28 11:41:35.917 GMT
(Updates with wind forecast in second paragraph.)
By Aaron Clark and Stuart Biggs
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- New York commuters and travelers
face further disruptions today as winds hinder efforts to clear
roads and runways following the heaviest December snows in six
decades.
While the storm is moving slowly away, rising atmospheric
pressure will continue to cause winds gusting to about 40 mph
(64 kph) in some open areas, commercial forecaster AccuWeather
Inc. said on its website. Winds may "quickly" cover roads with
snow, according to a winter weather advisory from the National
Weather Service late yesterday.
Airports may struggle to keep runways clear, said
Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather. New York's LaGuardia, John F.
Kennedy International and Newark Liberty airports opened last
night for outgoing traffic after snows forced shutdowns.
Airlines have canceled more than 6,000 flights nationwide since
airports began to close on Dec. 26.
NJ Transit, which carries about 170,000 commuters to and
from New York City daily, said passengers should expect delays
because of local road conditions. The agency expected to restore
bus services at 12:01 a.m. and planned to operate reduced train
services today aside from on the Atlantic City Rail Line, it
said in a statement on its website. Amtrak will pare rail
services between Boston, New York and Washington, it said.
30-inch Snowfall
More than a foot of snow fell across the northeast
yesterday, with some areas in New Jersey getting more than 30
inches (76 centimeters), according to AccuWeather. Central Park
had 20 inches of snow by 8 a.m. yesterday, the most for the
month since 1948, the National Weather Service said.
New York City will have winds between 16 mph and 20 mph
with gusts as high as 31 mph, according to a Weather Service
forecast. Its winter weather advisory, covering a wider region,
said gusts may hit 55 mph overnight before slowing to 40 mph by
morning.
The storm reached New York the day after Christmas, one of
the five busiest shopping days of the year. It may take
retailers two weeks to recover from lost sales, said Marshal
Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc., a research firm
based in Port Washington, New York.
New York, which faces a $2.5 billion deficit in the $65
billion budget projected for next year, will be more affected by
lost economic activity than clean-up costs, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg said at a City Hall news conference on Dec. 26. The
mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent
Bloomberg LP.
The snowfall was the fifth-largest on record for the city,
Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said on Dec. 26.
Flight Cancelations
U.S. carriers canceled at least 3,389 flights yesterday,
after cutting more than 3,334 on Dec. 26, as they waited for
airports to open in the Northeast, spokesmen said. Airlines in
some cases grounded flights ahead of the storm to keep planes
from getting stuck at closed facilities.
The storm brought snow as far south as parts of
Jacksonville, Florida, AccuWeather said. The storm system began
in the South over the Christmas holiday. Four inches of snow
fell in Chattanooga, Tennessee, while 8 inches was reported in
Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Environment Canada issued a blizzard warning yesterday for
northeastern New Brunswick and warned of heavy snow or rain in
the rest of the Maritime provinces. The snowfall is expected to
taper off into flurries today, the agency said.
For Related News and Information:
For more winter weather stories: NSE US WINTER WEATHER <GO>
Weather stories: WNEWS <GO>
Bloomberg Weather Center: WEAT <GO>
Top stories: TOP <GO>
--With assistance from Henry Goldman, Will Daley, Jonathan
Keehner, Robert Friedman, Jim Polson, William Glasgall and
James Langford in New York City; Stacie Servetah in Trenton;
Chris Burritt in Greensboro, North Carolina; Mary
Schlangenstein in Dallas; Matt Walcoff in Toronto; Brian K.
Sullivan in Boston; Ola Kinnander in Stockholm and Andreas
Cremer in Dusseldorf. Editors: Dave McCombs, Neil Denslow,
Kenneth Wong
To contact the reporters on this story:
Aaron Clark in New York at +1-212-617-2473 or
aclark27@bloomberg.net;
Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at +81-3-3201-3093 or
sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Neil Denslow at +852-2977-6639 or
ndenslow@bloomberg.net.
