The Northeast is digging out from the biggest snowstorm of the winter after heavy snow buried areas from West Virginia through Massachusetts, prompting school closures and travel chaos Tuesday.
As Accuweather reports, on Tuesday, 3.2 inches fell in New York City, the highest single-day snowfall in the city since 7.3 inches accumulated in Central Park on Jan. 29, 2022. The snow was not as heavy in downtown Philadelphia, where around 2 inches was measured, although more than half a foot was reported in suburbs north and west of the city. Little to no accumulation was reported in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Over 1,200 flights were canceled across the Northeast, according to FlightAware, putting the skids on the Tuesday morning commute. Snow-covered roads also led to treacherous travel for motorists across the region, including in eastern Pennsylvania where AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell said, “It is a mess.”
The highest snowfall totals were reported in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, where more than a foot of powder piled up. Around a foot of snow was also measured in parts of northern New Jersey, New York’s Hudson Valley and pockets of Connecticut.
More than 180,000 electric customers were without power across the Northeast as of late Tuesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us — most of those, 150,000, in Pennsylvania. By 4 p.m. Tuesday, outages in Pennsylvania had fallen below 100,000.
The heavy, wet snow was slow to accumulate on some roads, as the ground was still warm following an unusually mild start to February; however, the snow clung to trees and other elevated surfaces, turning landscapes into a winter wonderland.
Residents across the Northeast will have a few days to dig out from the early week snowstorm before the next storm swings through the region near the end of the week.
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