An unexpectedly heavy snowstorm covered the region Thursday afternoon and evening, causing a flurry of traffic accidents, backups and power failures from snow-laden branches falling on power lines.
As of about 11 p.m., Eversource reported more than 2,100 customers without power in Hampshire County. Southampton, with 1,250 powerless, and Easthampton, with 653, were the hardest hit, and hundreds more were affected in Deerfield, Whately and other Franklin County towns.
National Grid, meanwhile, reported 1,440 without power, all but 113 of them in Northampton.
Area police agencies said traffic accidents, though numerous, were mostly minor. In Hadley, a tree fell on a vehicle, and another vehicle hit a tree, Officer John Robitaille said.
“Nothing out of the ordinary for a storm in October,” Northampton Officer Mike Cronin said.
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Taunton, who had previously predicted only a light dusting, were receiving snowfall numbers between 3 and 4 inches from towns at higher elevations including Hawley and Worthington by 5:30 p.m.
At the same time, local police and fire departments responded to numerous reports of accidents, vehicles that had spun off the roads, lines of cars unable to pass in the wintry conditions and trees on fire due to downed power lines.
A car that slid into a utility pole on Long Plain Road in Whately knocked down a transformer, and police had to close the road for a few hours to let utility crews work.
Numerous roads in Hampshire County were closed for a time due to low-hanging power lines and otherwise treacherous conditions.
Flurries began around noon in the region and persisted through the afternoon, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist William Babcock. By 4 p.m., the snow had turned to rain in Springfield, but continued falling in flakes until it changed to rain after 6 p.m. in Northampton.
“We expected temperatures would be warming up throughout the afternoon,” Babcock said. “It was not as fast as we were thinking earlier.”
Snow at this point in the year is rare but not unprecedented, Babcock said. In the past 110 years that the Weather Service has been keeping records, snow has fallen in the region four times in October, including a 12-inch storm on October 29, 2011.
Babcock said this snowstorm would not be as disruptive as the blizzard in 2011, but that some snow could bring down trees and wires.
Babcock said temperatures would continue to rise overnight, reaching 40 to 42 degrees by sunrise.
“Temperatures are going up and they are already warm enough that snow is changing over to rain in the area,” he said. “The farther north you go, the longer that will take.”
Babcock advised drivers to be careful out in the snow.
“Snow is snow whether it is October or January,” he said. “In any snowstorm you need to drive carefully.
The potential for slippery roads is always there, even though people aren’t thinking about it this time of year.”
Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@gazettenet.com.