Americans In The Dark As Historic Winter Storm Rages — When Will It End?

Hundreds of thousands in the Northeastern United States and the Mid-Atlantic were without power on Monday morning after some areas were hammered by more than a foot of snow, with even more expected. 

Around 146,000 customers were without power in Massachusetts, 122,820 in New Jersey, 71,471 in Delaware, and 18,386 in New York, according to PowerOutage.us. The storm prompted local travel bans, school closures, and the cancellation of thousands of flights. 

Snow fall is expected to taper off beginning Monday afternoon and evening before the storm leaves New England Monday night. As of Monday morning, tens of millions of people were still under a blizzard warning.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Northeast and New England would continue to experience “very heavy snowfall rates” on Monday, with snowfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour and wind gusts of 40 to 70 mph. 

“By tomorrow morning, some areas near the coastline could wake up to storm total snowfall amounts of one to two feet as the low departs into the Canadian Maritimes. For today, however, the very high snowfall rates and potentially damaging wind gusts will make travel nearly impossible from the DelMarVa Peninsula into southeastern New England,” the National Weather Service said. 

The NWS added that another storm system out of the Upper Great Lakes could bring additional snow to parts of the Northeast later this week. 

Hundreds of flights at New York’s LaGuardia and JFK International, Boston’s Logan International, and Newark’s Liberty International were cancelled amid the storm.

As of early Monday morning, snow totals were well over a foot in the New York City area, including Islip (22.5 inches), Upton (18.3 inches), Central Park (15.1 inches), LaGuardia airport (15.1 inches), JFK airport (15 inches), and Newark (18.3 inches). 

New York snowplow driver John Brown told The New York Times that the roads would not stay clear. 

 “I’ve never seen something like this,” he said. “As you plow an hour later you come back it looks like you were never there.”

Credit: Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued an emergency declaration on Monday, closing schools and imposing a ban on car travel within the city for non-emergency, non-essential purposes. Exceptions are for vehicles “providing emergency services, public transportation, medical supplies, food, fuel, utility repairs and other critical services.”

Rhode Island also implemented a statewide travel ban on non-essential vehicle travel. 

Governors across the Northeast have declared emergencies over the storm, including in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.