Heavy sleet covered parts of northeastern New England to West Virginia on Tuesday, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of people during a spring storm.
The nor’easter threw 18 inches of heavy snow on Virgil, in central New York, while parts of eastern Pennsylvania received up to 14 inches of snow, according to the Weather Prediction Center. The agency reported that snowfall was measured in states such as Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia.
The storm also brought strong winds to New England, reaching a top speed of 142 miles per hour at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and 83 mph at Matinicus Rock near Maine, the National Weather Service reported.
Winds contributed to the hundreds of thousands of power outages in the northeast caused by the storm’s end of the season.
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The storm broke tree branches and cut power to more than 350,000 New York utilities, Governor Kathy Hochul said.
By early Wednesday morning, that number had dropped to about 139,000, according to poweroutage.us, a website that tracks power outages across the country.
“Most of that event took place between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. So people woke up in the dark, the alarms didn’t go off and realized they might be taking a long breath without their critical power have,” Hochul said on a Tuesday. press conference evening.
At one point, about 47,000 customers were without power in northeast Pennsylvania, and about 27,400 were without power by 1:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us. Most of New England’s 39,000 outages were in Maine and Vermont, where some parts of the state got six inches of snow or more.
State officials warned it could take several days to regain power due to the nature of the spring storm and heavy, wet snow.
Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest electric utility, warned residents to expect more power outages as snow continues to fall and wind gusts hit the region.
Contributions: The Associated Press