The fast-moving winter storms through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Wednesday merged with illing thickets of ice and thin and strong winds to create dangerous road conditions in the affected areas.
Clinton County, PA. Two deaths have been reported as a result of a pileup involving dozens of cars on interstate 80, state police said. A Virginia State Police spokesman said a 19-year-old man was killed in a car crash, with about 200 people in the state responding by 3 p.m.
In New York City, half a dozen people were hospitalized with fatal injuries after a multicar collided head-on with a salty front on the south side of the bridge connecting Manhattan to the Bronx, officials said.
As night fell, the hurricane, which was forecast, was proving to be one of the largest in New York, Philadelphia and other East Coast cities since a devastating 2016 snowstorm.
“Everything that was predicted is on track,” meteorologist David Stark said Wednesday evening with the National Weather Service in New York. By then, 2.6 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park, the weather service said.
Snow began to fall in New York City several hours ago and was expected to come with increasing intensity by midnight, Mr. Stark said. At the time, he added, the rain would largely turn into a mixture of snow and thin.
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Stark said the change from ice to fabric could occur earlier than expected and the accumulation of ice in the city could occur at the lower end of the predicted eight to 12 inches.
By 11:30 p.m. in Upper Manhattan, the rain had turned to a mixture of snow, rain, and thinning that began to clog the currents between parked cars. Walking short distances became unpleasant in the mid-20s due to the intense glare of temperature and wind.
In Philadelphia, the afternoon snow gave way to sleep, there were reports of five inches in Rittenhouse Square and around six inches at Philadelphia International Airport.
The first hurricane, a hurricane in the Maryland, Virginia and Washington area, spread across the region with a mixture of cool rain and snow. Near Frederick County, Mo. In Washington Washington, about 50 miles southeast, the ice seems to be turning.
The hurricane is expected to be about 1000 miles from North Carolina to New England, According to the National Weather Service, And falling trees, thunderstorms and snow covered the roadway (some outages were reported by 9 p.m.). Hurricanes were forecast in western Maryland and south central Pennsylvania with up to two feet of snow in those areas.
One person was killed late Wednesday afternoon in a municipal snowstorm in western Pennsylvania, officials said. 13 miles south-east of Pipesburg, North Versailles, Pa.
Schools with individual schools, including New York City and Boston, have closed or announced plans to do so. The ice forced the temporary closure of several coronavirus testing sites in the Baltimore area, and the closure of two city-sponsored mobile testing sites in Boston.
Matt Otten, manager of Zeftigs Delicatesson, a Boston restaurant known for its Jewish comfort food, said it would not close normally due to bad weather. This time though he was worried. He said, “We are concerned for the safety of our workers as the roads will become very treacherous.
Winter Tuna’s first major winter hurricane entered the east coast on Wednesday and Thursday morning, and as in 2020, it was further complicated by the coronavirus epidemic.
Hospitals in the path of the storm are already struggling with overloaded intensive care units and emergency departments admitted to Covid-19 hospital, delaying alternative surgery to keep beds available. Baltimore and Hartford, Conn. Many large cities, including, are temporarily shutting down coronavirus test sites in anticipation of heavy snow and wind.
The hurricane also threatened to deliver the coronavirus vaccine on time, just as the first inoculations of health care workers began this week. The St. Lucas University Health Network, which operates 12 hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is expected to deliver its first vaccine on Thursday, but a spokesman said the hurricane is likely to be delayed.
While hundreds of school districts announced closures on Wednesdays and Thursdays due to the hurricane, others received online online education believing snow days to be the perfect alternative during the epidemic, with students hoping for a day to be disappointed.
The common headache of flight delays – hundreds of flights were canceled on Wednesday – has come up with new concerns due to the virus. Chloe Cho, 22, was on her way home from Boston to Chicago on Thursday, but the hurricane delayed her trip by another day.
He said, “I’m not thrilled. “I usually don’t mind waiting at airports, but now I’m scared because of the coward that I have to sit around because of the hurricane and wait for my flight.”
With a major winter hurricane sweeping through the eastern United States, you might ask some people (and perhaps inevitably President Trump), “What happened to global warming?”
It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change has an impact on storms, although relationships can be complex and, yes, hostile. “There were expectations that winter was basically disappearing on us,” said Judah Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at AER, a company that provides information to customers about weather and weather-related hazards.
Although winters are getting warmer and overall a little lighter, severe weather events are also on the rise, and especially in the Northeastern United States, Dr. Cohen noted in a recent paper in the Journal of Nature Communications. From the winter of 2008-9 to 2017-18, there were 27 major Northeast winter storms, three to four times the average of each over the past five decades.
One of the factors that potentially feeds hurricanes is the warm atmosphere, which can catch more water vapor; Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, said that simply means more rain, but when steam forms clouds, it “releases heat into the air, which fuels the storm.” Potentially important, but less understood, she noted, “there is a tendency for jet flows to take a large part to the north and south, establishing a weather phenomenon such as a terrible polar vortex.”
Does this mean that this particular hurricane has been fueled by a weather reversal? Jonathan E., professor of meteorology and oceanography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Martin warned against quick findings.
Because hurricanes and their climates have “tremendous natural variability”, “I think it’s a dangerous business that winter storms, or their characteristics, attribute to climate change.” And this storm in particular is getting a lot of its moisture from the water vapor evaporating from the Atlantic Ocean, which complicates the picture.
Dr. Francis agreed that any connections are complex, but added, “Now all storms occur in a largely changed environment, so there is little chance that storms will not be the same as they were decades ago.”
