Northeast digs out from winter storm, faces power outages

Parts of New England and New York are digging out of a nor’easter that caused tens of thousands of power outages, numerous school cancellations and whiteout conditions on the roads

Parts of New England and New York were digging out of a nor'easter Wednesday that caused tens of thousands of power outages, numerous school cancellations and whiteout conditions on the roads.

The storm began Monday night and lasted throughout Tuesday, dumping as much as 3 feet (91 centimeters) of snow and gusty winds before moving on. Others got just a few inches or a wintry mix. More high winds and below-normal temperatures were in Wednesday's forecast before a warm-up later in the week.

Some of the highest snow totals reported were 35 inches (89 cm) in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and in Ashby, Massachusetts, about 15 miles away (24 kilometers), the National Weather Service said. At least 2 feet (60 cm) of snow fell in parts of northern New York and the Catskill Mountains, with Indian Lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains recording 31 inches (79 cm).

About 220,000 customers in the region were without power Wednesday morning, according to the PowerOutage.us tracking site.

“We are still expecting this to be a multiday restoration effort,” Unitil spokesperson Alec O'Meara said. Crews from New York and Pennsylvania arrived to help bring back power in parts of Massachusetts and help assess damage from trees and downed lines.

There were concerns about roofs weighed down by the snow. An inflatable sports arena dome collapsed in Goffstown, New Hampshire, which received about 15 inches (38 cm) of snow. It wasn't immediately known whether anyone was inside at the time or if there were any injuries.

Several cows were killed when a barn collapsed at a dairy farm in Dracut, Massachusetts. The owners of Shaw Farm said in a statement Tuesday that they “experienced one of life’s unexpected challenges,” adding that no staff members were hurt.

During the worst of the storm Tuesday, about 2,100 flights traveling to, from or within the U.S. were canceled, with Boston and New York City area airports seeing the highest number of scrubbed flights, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Numerous schools had been closed; many were running on a delayed schedule Wednesday.

As residents in the Northeast dealt with the storm’s aftermath, forecasters warned of more flooding and potentially damaging winds as a new atmospheric river pushed into a swamped California. So far this winter, California has been battered by 10 previous atmospheric rivers, long plumes of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, as well as powerful storms fueled by arctic air that produced blizzard conditions.