NEW YORK — The Northeast is digging out from a second powerful nor’easter in less than a week that left behind more than 2 feet of snow in some areas, hundreds of thousands without power, school closures and travel chaos
The late-winter storm left more than 800,000 customers without power in the Northeast — counting some who have been without electricity since last Friday’s destructive nor’easter.
In the Pioneer Valley and the Hilltowns, intermittent snowfall will continue to move in bands across the state until ending around noon. Cummington saw the highest snow totals in Hampshire County at 14 inches, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Nicole Belk. Seven inches of snow fell in Belchertown, eight in South Hadley and five in Amherst.
Lower elevations, like those in the Connecticut River Valley, often see less snowfall due to a phenomenon called a “precipitation shadow,” said Belk. “In the valley region typically there’s a little bit of a precipitation shadow where there’s lower totals,” Belk said. “It will be lower in the valley while the higher terrains have the higher totals usually.”
The storm has traveled northeast and is heading up the coast. Dry conditions are expected this afternoon for the Pioneer Valley, according to Belk.
Parking bans were in effect throughout the night and into the morning in Easthampton and Northampton. Mountain Road in Easthampton was closed overnight, but opened back up at about 4:30 a.m. No overnight accidents were reported in Amherst, Hadley, Northampton or Easthampton as of Thursday morning. Several school districts, including Easthampton, Hadley, Northampton, and Hatfield will have delayed openings today, while others, including South Hadley and the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, are closed.
According to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, there were 308,937 power outages statewide as of 6:30 a.m., but none in Hampshire county. Governor Charlie Baker declared all non-emergency state executive branch offices closed Thursday due to hazardous road conditions and power outages throughout the state.
Elsewhere, more snow fell. Montville, New Jersey, got more than 26 inches from Wednesday’s nor’easter. North Adams, Massachusetts, registered 24 inches, and Sloatsburg, New York, got 26 inches.
Major cities along the Interstate 95 corridor saw much less. Philadelphia International Airport recorded about 6 inches, while New York City’s Central Park saw less than 3 inches.
The storm made traveling treacherous. Thousands of flights across the region were canceled.
It was not much better on the ground. Members of the Northeastern University women’s basketball team pushed their bus back on course after it was stuck in the snow outside a practice facility in Philadelphia. The Huskies were in the city to compete in the 2018 CAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. The team posted a video of the feat on its Twitter account.
Amtrak suspended service between New York City and Boston until at least 10 a.m. Thursday. New York City’s Metro-North commuter railroad suspended service on lines connecting the city to its northern suburbs and Connecticut because of downed trees. It was not immediately known when service would be restored.
“It’s kind of awful,” said New York University student Alessa Raiford, who put two layers of clothing on a pug named Jengo before taking him for a walk in slushy, sloppy Manhattan, where rain gave way to wet snow in the afternoon. “I’d rather that it be full-on snowing than rain and slush. It just makes it difficult.”
The storm was not predicted to be as severe as the nor’easter that toppled trees, flooded coastal communities and caused more than 2 million power outages from Virginia to Maine last Friday.
It still proved to be a headache for the tens of thousands of customers still in the dark from the earlier storm — and for the crews trying to restore power to them.
Massachusetts was hardest hit by outages, with more than 300,000 without service early Thursday. In New Jersey, the state’s major utilities reported more than 247,000,000 customers without power a day after the storm.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, public works crews late Wednesday had a hard time keeping up with the snow.
“It’s heavy. Well, it was so warm earlier that it just melted when it hit the ground and now it’s heavy,” said Jesse Nadeau. “It’s the heaviest part of the storm right now for the next couple of hours. Heavy and wet.”
In North White Plains, New York, 10 people were taken to hospitals with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator inside a home, police said. All were expected to survive.
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Gazette staff writer Sarah Robertson contributed to this report. Porter reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Michael Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Michael Sisak and Rod Hicks in Philadelphia; Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey, and Rodrique Ngowi in Worcester, Massachusetts, contributed.