Nor’easter knocks out power for about 235,000 customers across the Northeast
Apr 19, 2022, 3:53 PM | Updated: Jun 8, 2022, 3:16 pm
(Aki Soga/The Burlington Free Press/USA Today Network via CNN)
(CNN) — About 235,000 customers were without power across the Northeast on Tuesday afternoon, primarily in upstate New York, as an April nor’easter brought heavy snow and gusty winds to the region.
Parts of western New York and Pennsylvania were hit with over a foot of snow, according to preliminary snowfall totals, including 18 inches in the town of Virgil, New York.
High winds also battered coastal areas, highlighted by 67 mph gusts in Tuckerton, New Jersey, and 66 mph gusts in Cape May, New Jersey. New York City’s JFK Airport recorded a gust of 47 mph overnight, while wind peaks ranged from 46 mph to 69 mph across parts of Suffolk County on Long Island, according to the National Weather Service.
Those without power include about 171,000 homes and businesses in New York and about 43,000 in Pennsylvania, according to the website PowerOutage.US.
Around 500,000 people are still under winter weather alerts Tuesday in the interior Northeast from northeast Pennsylvania into upstate New York. Another 2 to 3 inches of snow is possible over central-upstate New York on Tuesday night.
Wind alerts along the coastal towns have ended as the strongest winds have subsided, but the area will remain breezy on Tuesday.
There is a gale warning from New York’s Long Island northward along the New England coast. The weather service says during the warning, which is in effect until 8 a.m. ET., some areas will see seas as high as 15 feet.
“Strong winds will cause hazardous seas which could capsize or damage vessels and reduce visibility.” the weather service said.
Wind advisories in northern Pennsylvania and western and central New York will continue into Tuesday night, as winds could gust to 40 mph.
A nor’easter is a term for a storm on the US East Coast in which powerful winds come from the northeast. This current storm’s late-season arrival in mid-April is rare though not unheard of, experts said.
While the storms often impact coastal areas, this week’s nor’easter tracked much farther to the west, meaning precipitation in coastal cities arrived as rain while inland locations received heavy, wet snow.
Before arriving to the Northeast, the storm dropped heavy rain across the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic coast.
The-CNN-Wire
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