“Storm Shuts Down Northeast; Thousands Without Power, Airports Closed,” Newsmax reports:
A behemoth storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and blizzard conditions swept through the Northeast overnight, where more than 650,000 homes and businesses lost power and New Englanders awoke this morning to more than 2 feet of snow.
Airlines scratched more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and the three major airports serving New York City as well as Boston’s Logan Airport closed.
More than 38 inches of snow fell in Milford in central Connecticut, and an 82-mph wind gust was recorded in nearby Westport. Areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire notched at least 2 feet — with more falling.
Flooding was also a concern along the coast, and the possibility led to the evacuation of two neighborhoods in Quincy, Mass., said Fire Deputy Gary Smith.
Snow piled up so high in some places Saturday that people couldn’t open their doors to get outside. Streets were mostly deserted throughout New England save for plow crews and a few hardy souls walking dogs or venturing out to take pictures. In Boston’s Financial District, the only sound was an army of snowblowers clearing sidewalks. Streets in many places were impassable.
Perhaps knowing that somebody might actually be watching, the storm was powerful enough to knock CNN’s late-night programming out of all-gun-control-all-the-time-mode last night for the first time seemingly since 1973.
At the PJ Tatler, Stephen Kruiser spots the Huffington Post blaming the storm on — well, two guesses:
Climate change may or may not have helped generate the nor’easter lashing the East Coast this weekend. Such storms happen with some regularity, after all. But the amount of snow the storm called “Nemo” ultimately dumps, and the extent of flood damage it leaves in its wake, may well have ties to global warming, climate scientists suggested.
Funny, I thought “Snowfalls Are Now Just a Thing of the Past.” It was in all the papers:
That was from 2000, the same year that the New York Times sniffed, “it does not take a scientist to size up the effects of snowless winters on the children too young to remember the record-setting blizzards of 1996. For them, the pleasures of sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling, and the delight of a snow day off from school is unknown.”
This week though, as James Lileks noted on Twitter, “News report of East Coasters stocking up on bread, milk and toilet paper. So snowstorm = French toast and dysentery.”
This fellow really knows the drill:
And finally, Glenn Reynolds asks, when did we start naming non-hurricanes, anyhow? An Insta-reader replies that we didn’t — it’s just a goofy trend recently started by the Weather Channel.
Does it snow much in Torino?
Update: “Gov. Deval Patrick is taking some extreme measures to keep people off the roads.” Trust me, just click.
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