Northeast Storm Knocks Out Power, Cancels Flights

A powerful winter storm has buried New York City in one of its 10 snowiest days on record, and it’s poised to rank among the worst blizzards in almost 50 years. About 600,000 homes and businesses lost power and more than 10,000 flights were canceled through Tuesday.Author of the article:You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.(Bloomberg) — A powerful winter storm has buried New York City in one of its 10 snowiest days on record, and it’s poised to rank among the worst blizzards in almost 50 years. About 600,000 homes and businesses lost power and more than 10,000 flights were canceled through Tuesday.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Manhattan’s Central Park recorded more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of snow from Sunday through 7 a.m. local time Monday, its 10th-largest daily total. The record remains 27.3 inches, set in January 2016. Islip on Long Island received more than 22 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The nor’easter is expected to continue in New York — where several schools, roads and bridges are closed — through Monday afternoon before tapering off, the National Weather Service said. City officials predict another six inches of snow could fall across New York by 8 p.m., with totals up to 22 inches in some areas.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.“Anytime you are getting a travel ban and it is involving the Tri-State area, it is an absolutely significant storm,” said Tyler Roys, a meteorologist with commercial-forecaster AccuWeather, Inc. “In terms of the impacts on people’s lives and property in a multitude of different ways this is a very significant storm for them. We have forgotten what these storms are like.” The storm disrupted transportation across the Northeast and beyond. Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston, and cancellations mounted nationwide.As of 11:50 a.m. New York time, 10,739 US flights scheduled from from Sunday to Tuesday had been canceled, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service. Many regional airports have been closed, including Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.Airports in the Northeast were hit particularly hard, with almost 97% of departing flights at New York’s John F.

Kennedy International Airport canceled, along with roughly 98% at Boston Logan International Airport and nearly 96% at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.“Blizzard conditions are expected and will make travel treacherous and potentially life-threatening,” the New York branch of the US National Weather Service said in a notice late Sunday.Hundreds of thousands homes and businesses from Virginia to Massachusetts were without power on Monday, according to PowerOutage.com. Massachusetts reported 255,864 followed by New Jersey with 134,809.

In New York, 3,813 were blacked out in Queens, 6,322 in Nassau County and 8,742 in Suffolk County.The heaviest snow and strongest winds swept across Long Island into Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, said Rob Carolan, owner of Hometown Forecast Services, which provides outlooks for Bloomberg Radio. Gusts reached 47 miles-per-hour at John F.

Kennedy International Airport and as high as 70 mph on the Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.For Philadelphia, the storm is the worst since 2016, Roys said. In parts of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, totals may rival those of the Blizzard of 1978. “Some places will see three feet of snow,” he said.US natural gas futures surged as much as 6.8% in early Asian trading on Sunday as traders expected higher demand for the heating and power-plant fuel as temperatures dropped. But most of those gains were wiped out in early US trading on Monday as the storm knocked out power for half a million customers in the Northeast, with the contract for March gas delivery at 9:19 a.m. in New York up just 0.7% from Friday’s settlement price. Wholesale electricity prices on the New York state grid were muted as demand came in below forecasts as many businesses and schools were shut. Most power being used on Monday was contracted for in the day-ahead market, and real-time prices are coming in lower because of weaker-than-forecast demand.Spot prices Manhattan and surrounding boroughs were $55.03 a megawatt-hour at 9:43 a.m., below the day-ahead price $76.55 for the hour. On the adjacent and largest US grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC, which stretches from New Jersey into North Carolina and out to Illinois, real-time prices were about $33 a megawatt-hour across the grid at 9:55 a.m., about half the price of the day-ahead market.Diesel futures – effectively interchangeable with heating oil used in the Northeast – briefly climbed to their highest levels since the brutal spell of cold and snow at the end of January. And short-term demand for diesel grew, with the difference between the current diesel contract and the next month’s contract rising as much as 20%, a gauge known as the prompt spread.While not universally recognized by the weather service or other outlets, the storm has been dubbed Hernando by the Weather Channel.New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for New York City, Long Island and parts of the Hudson Valley. Massachusetts and New Jersey also declared an emergency and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont banned commercial vehicle travel starting at 5 p.m. on Sunday.The storm’s central pressure dropped to 968 millibars Monday morning, down from 1,005 Sunday, Carolan said. “So it certainly bombed out,” he added.After the storm passes, some of the snow should start melting as temperatures rise above freezing, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. However, there is the potential for additional snow later this week. The computer forecast models aren’t clear on the details yet.Further out into next week, there is also the chance another storm may sweep the Northeast, Carolan said. “I don’t see this breaking down until April.”—With assistance from Lauren Rosenthal, Joe Wertz, Mary Hui, Hayley Warren, Alex Newman, Julian Hast, Naureen S. Malik, Allyson Versprille and Will Kubzansky.(Updates with energy prices and other details starting in sixth paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the snowfall predictions for New York City in the video caption.)Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.