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WE MIGHT BE enjoying crisp, sunny starts to our days here…but it’s a different story state-side.
The northeastern US is shivering amid heavy snowfall and far below average temperatures in a storm that grounded thousands of flights and triggered traffic chaos.
The nasty weather with its bone-chilling gusts and heavy snow stretched from Washington to New England. The Midwest was hit hard, too.
Taking into account the wind chill factor, the temperature in Chicago plummeted to minus 20 Fahrenheit (-28 Celsius), the Chicago Tribune said.
In the nation’s largest city, New York, the commute home yesterday evening was a mess and the city was expected to get as many as 14 inches (35 cm) of snow by this morning.
“It’s horrible. Snow is cute for only a little bit,” Mary Catherine Hughes, standing by a subway stop with an umbrella rendered useless in fierce wind, told The New York Times.
The city’s new mayor Bill de Blasio urged people to stay home say road crews could clear streets.
Downtown Washington fell eerily silent after the federal government, seeing the swift-moving storm approaching, closed its doors and told civil servants, who already had the day off Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday, to stay home Tuesday.
On Wednesday, federal agencies were to open two hours late. Employees could also take unscheduled leave, and those that can were allowed to work from home.
The nation’s capital is famous for cowering in the face of even a few flakes but Tuesday’s storm seemed to justify a shutdown.
Many offices and schools followed suit, as 20 mile (32 kilometer) per hour winds whipped through the US capital’s unusually quiet streets.
Most area schools, in the city and neighbouring Maryland and Virginia, remain closed again today.
Washington’s Metro public transit system reported half as many riders yesterday than what’s usually on a typical weekday. Business was so slow that many restaurants used Twitter to woo customers with bargain-priced drinks while others offered customers 2-for-1 deals.
In Philadelphia, the official total at Philadelphia International Airport was 11 inches of snow yesterday evening, a record for the day January 21.
Temperatures across the eastern part of the country will be 10 to 25 degrees below average today.
A man crosses Broad Street during a winter snowstorm in Philadelphia.
FlightAware, a website that monitors air traffic in real time, said nearly 3,000 flights into, out of or within the United States were cancelled yesterday.
The lion’s share of affected flights involved busy airports in the New York, Philadelphia and Washington areas.
National rail company Amtrak said it would operate “a modified schedule” today on its Northeast Corridor line between Washington and Boston, as well as on two other routes in the hard-hit region.
States of emergency were declared there, as well as in New Jersey and Delaware, according to CNN.
Across the Hudson River, New Jersey went ahead with its mid-day inauguration ceremony for re-elected governor Chris Christie, who is battling allegations he used his office to bully political foes.
But an evening gala on historic Ellis Island in New York Harbor to mark the start of his new term in office was scrapped due to the storm.
Schools across the Northeast either closed for the day or told parents to expect their youngsters to be dismissed from class earlier than usual. Closures in many areas were extended through today. Meanwhile, courthouses called off proceedings in the afternoon.
Fear for the amount of homeless exposed to this weather in America :(
It’s the trolleys I feel sorry for!
We didn’t get snow but it’s -22c here in Burlington Vermont.
Head for the whiskey room!
Darren, I delivered their mail already.
If I never seen snow again it would be too soon. I will never forget those miserable winters we had, stuck in the house, spending hours getting to work, I remember being stuck on the n11 one night nearly 5 hours and ran out of petrol. Whenever I see snow on tv or on Xmas cards etc the sight now disgusts me.
Looks lovely ! Love snow but hate the slush after a few days!
Does anybody honestly care about the weather in the USA? I don’t care about the weather in cork let alone the US.
why on earth did you read / comment on the story then ?
Does anyone honestly care what you have to say?! Dzzzooppe
A very cold winter in North America can directly affect the world price for oil and natural gas… Maybe you should care?
We have plenty in reserve and frankly, most of our oil and natural gas comes from the US, Canada and Mexico anyway. World prices are impacted much more by speculators in the markets than usage in the US.
I have a flight to Philadelphia tomorrow, hope i can make it!
We’ll all light a candle and say a prayer for you!
A wooly mammoth has been spotted crossing a pedestrian crossing on a street somewhere in Chicago! True story!
Landed into JFK yesterday after a week in Mexico. Went from 30°C to -16°C (-26°C with wind chill).Bodies still in shock.
Ahhh! I’m supposed to be going there next week. Hope the snow is gone by then! I don’t fancy staying in my hotel room the whole visit!
I got caught in a nor’easter in Boston a few years ago. 2 feet of snow fell in about 6 hours. Amazingly the roads were kept more or less clear. Some Craig but no delayed flight back to Ireland :(
Meanwhile in Germany “State weather forecaster, DWD, said that people in icy areas should avoid driving. On Monday night there were 132 accidents on Berlin’s roads, on the back of 2,200 ice-related incidents during the day.”
They don’t seem to cope any better than we do with snow.
“Fallen trees and iced-over train tracks have made rail travel difficult across the whole country and trains were delayed for up to ten hours.”"Transport police were forced to close the A20 motorway near Hamburg after cars began skidding uncontrollably on Monday evening.”
The Local.
This weather system is bashing up against the one covering Ireland and England, if it wins then things could get interesting on our eastern side.
have your say