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Storm Pounds Boston After Dumping New Snow on New York (Update4)
2011-01-12 21:50:57.720 GMT
(Updates flight cancellations in second paragraph.)
By Brian K. Sullivan
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- A storm that dropped more than 9
inches of new snow on New York City pounded Boston with blizzard
conditions, disrupting travel and prompting Massachusetts'
governor to declare a state of emergency.
Almost 3,300 flights were canceled, mostly in the
Northeast, according to airline reports compiled by Bloomberg.
Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston after a
tree fell on an overhead power line near Sharon, Massachusetts,
and the National Weather Service reported downed trees and power
lines across the area.
Heavy snow will fall in waves on Boston and eastern New
England for the rest of the day, said Alan Dunham, a weather
service meteorologist in Taunton, Massachusetts. The storm was
off the coast of Massachusetts at midday and strengthening,
Dunham said.
"It will take a couple of hours for some these heavier
bands to come through," Dunham said. "There will be spots that
see a foot and a half to two feet of snow by the time it is all
said and done."
Boston officials shut public schools, asked non-essential
city workers to stay home and urged other businesses to let
employees work from home, according to the city website.
Governor Deval Patrick mobilized 250 National Guard troops and
opened three shelters.
Power Failures
More than 71,000 customers were without power in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, according to statements from
NStar and National Grid. Heating oil futures surged to a 27-
month high on the New York Mercantile Exchange on speculation
that snow and cold in the Northeast will increase demand for
heating fuel.
In Maine, state offices closed early because of the snow,
according to a statement. About 29 inches of snow had fallen in
Newtown, Connecticut, by 1 p.m., according to that state's
Department of Emergency Management & Homeland Security.
As the storm moves north it is expected to bring about 10
inches of snow to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 8 inches to Moncton,
New Brunswick, according to Environment Canada. Snow warnings
have been issued for most of Nova Scotia and parts of New
Brunswick and Newfoundland, the weather agency said.
Snow Preparations
Cities across the U.S. Northeast deployed thousands of
plows and sand-spreaders to tackle the second major snowstorm in
a little more than two weeks.
New York City declared a weather emergency, urging people
to stay off the roads, as the storm moved in. Public schools
remained open.
More than 12 inches of snow fell on parts of the Bronx and
northern New Jersey while Central Park received 9.1 inches by
daybreak, when skies over Manhattan began to clear, the weather
service said.
The storm combined two systems, one from the Midwest and
another that dropped snow across the South earlier this week,
forcing the governors of Georgia and South Carolina to declare
emergencies. Snow was the ground today in 49 of the 50 states,
with Florida the only exception, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The blizzard that struck New York and the Northeast Dec. 26
and Dec. 27 dropped at least 20 inches of snow on Central Park
and forced the cancellation of more than 8,000 flights. Some New
York City streets were unplowed for days and garbage pickups
were backlogged.
NYC Cleanup
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today that the city's 6,000
miles of streets would be plowed twice by the end of the day.
Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent
of Bloomberg News.
"Our goal for this storm was not merely to get back to
business as usual," Bloomberg said during a news conference at
Emergency Operations headquarters in Brooklyn. "Our goal was to
deploy a more effective snow response operation than ever, more
aggressive and more accountable, based on the lessons learned
from the last storm, and that's what we've done."
Forecasters are already looking ahead to a system that may
arrive by the middle of next week, said Matt Rogers, president
of Commodity Weather Group LLC, a commercial forecaster in
Bethesda, Maryland.
Rogers said the computer models aren't clear on the exact
track the storm will take.
"But the bottom line is that by next week, we'll be
battling another winter storm threat," he said.
Andy Mussoline, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in
State College, Pennsylvania, said a system out of the Gulf of
Mexico will combine with one moving down from the Great Lakes.
How much cold air is added to the mix will determine how much
rain will change to snow, he said.
For Related News and Information:
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--With assistance from Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta; Henry
Goldman, Martin Z. Braun and Esme E. Deprez in New York;
Terrence Dopp in Trenton, New Jersey; and Barbara Powell and
Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas. Editors: Charlotte Porter,
Richard Stubbe.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at +1-617-210-4631 or
bsullivan10@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at +1-212-617-4403 or
dstets@bloomberg.net
