Winter storms pelt Northeast ahead of Christmas, knocking out power
Steff Thomas
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Residents in the Northeast may have a white Christmas after all.
Almost 200,000 households were without power as a heavy winter storm made its way across the Northeast, blanketing the coast in snow.
Data from PowerOutage.us showed that, as of Saturday afternoon, Maine reported more than 70,000 outages, New Hampshire had more than 50,000, Vermont reported more than 48,000, and New York had more than 22,000.
HEAVY SNOW EXPECTED TO BOMBARD THE NORTHEAST THIS WEEKEND
Some areas, including Maine and New Hampshire, received up to two feet of snow as of Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service. Colder temperatures are also likely.
“Much colder temperatures will spread over much of the U.S. this weekend and next week,” NWS tweeted. A lake effect off the Great Lakes is also likely to bring more snow to the Midwest and the Northeast, the service added.
https://twitter.com/NWS/status/1603909051267563522
The Green Mountain Power company in Vermont said the snow weighed down power lines and caused some trees to fall, which can result in outages.
CEO Mike Burke warned that more remote areas could be without power for a couple of days due to the dangerous conditions.
“Clearing downed trees to get to outage locations has been slow and difficult,” Burke said in a statement.
More than 700 workers in Maine are also working on restoring power, the Central Maine Power company said.
“We will be moving crews into the hardest hit areas throughout the day,” Senior Director Kerri Therriault said in a statement. “They will be out working until every customer is restored.”
Over 5 million people are affected by winter weather alerts or warnings across the United States.
NWS has cautioned against unnecessary travel. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has also urged residents to avoid traveling, even as the holidays approach.
“Rain will change to snow, making for tough travel,” she said Friday.
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The storm is part of a weather system that began in the South with deadly tornados and grueling power outages earlier this week.
Northeastern states are expected to clear of the storm by the end of the weekend, NWS said.