A blizzard-like blast from a deadly storm that has been raging across the United States since before Thanksgiving slammed the Northeast on Monday and is forecast to linger in parts until at least Wednesday.
The storm system has been dubbed Winter Storm Ezekiel by the Weather Channel and will barrel into 30 states through Tuesday. More than a foot has already fallen in Massachusetts, upstate New York and Vermont.
It is expected to linger in New York until just before sunrise on Tuesday, in Boston until early Tuesday afternoon and in Maine into Wednesday morning.
The bad weather has already forced the closure of schools and resulted in canceled flights from the East to West coast as the entire country reels from days of heavy rain, snowfall and high winds.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency and deployed 300 members of the National Guard on Monday.
And airline problems had more than doubled by midday, with most of the more than 4,000 U.S. flight cancellations and delays at airports in Newark, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington.
Storm Meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said: ‘There have been huge impacts from the storm since it occurred during the Thanksgiving week of travel and coming home from the holiday. It hit about possibly the worst time it could hit, and it went right across the entire country.’
Brave tourists trudge across the Brooklyn Bridge despite relentless snowfall. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency and deployed 300 members of the National Guard
The storm was expected to linger in New York until just before sunrise on Tuesday, in Boston until early Tuesday afternoon and in Maine into Wednesday morning. Times Square is pictured on Monday
The map above shows the forecast nationwide from Tuesday morning 7am EST through Wednesday morning 7am EST
A blizzard-like blast from a storm that has been raging across the US since before Thanksgiving slammed the Northeast on Monday, snarling travel ahead of the evening rush hour. The above map shows snowfall forecast up until Wednesday
Heavier snow totals were expected in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, northwestern New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire and Maine, with some areas already receiving a foot of snow, said meteorologist Bob Oravec of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
At least seven people in the U.S. and one in Canada have been killed, including three in two separate water rescue incidents in a heavily flooded region of St. Louis on Saturday, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.
The victims were a five-year-old boy and an eight-year-old boy who drowned in Patton when the car they were in got swept off a flooded road in Missouri. The third victim was Todd Dean, a man from Louisiana, was killed when his vehicle was swept into the Whitewater River.
In Arizona cousins Colby and Austin Rawlings, both five, were found dead on Saturday. The children had been reported missing when the ‘military style’ truck they were in got swept into a creek in the Tonto Basin near Phoenix. In the truck were nine members of the same family.
Four children and two adults were rescued by helicopter but the remaining children who stayed in the truck got swept away on Friday.
Crews are still searching for missing six-year-old girl Willa Rawlings, who was in that car with them. Authorities revealed Sunday they found a shoe believed to be Willa’s about 200 yards from where the truck got stuck in the creek.
Anne Cummingham walks her dog, Gracie, through the snow on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vermont, on Monday. A final wallop of a seemingly endless winter storm that impacted most of the country over the long holiday weekend is bearing down on the East, dumping heavy snow, shuttering schools and stymieing travel in the region Monday
Snow in Brattleboro, Vermont, on Monday. Heavier snow totals were expected in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, northwestern New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire and Maine, with some areas already receiving a foot of snow, said meteorologist Bob Oravec
The Brooklyn Bridge was covered in dazzling white snowflakes on Monday as tourists walked through the wintry weather
Tuesday forecast shows flurries will continue to come down but nor-easter will head on up towards Canada
Winter storm system Ezekiel will pummel through the East Coast through Tuesday bringing heavy snowfall
The National Weather Service shared this map showing snowfall projections through Tuesday
The wintry weather created a travel nightmare for millions trying to return home from the Thanksgiving holiday. As of Monday morning more than 200 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were cancelled and over 1,00 delayed. Many of the cancelled flights were at New York and Boston-area airports.
In Utah a six-year-old boy named Herman Slaughter died on Friday after he fell and struck his head while riding a snowplow with his father. They were driving in Provo Canyon when the equipment suddenly lurched forward and the boy fell. The Utah County Sheriff’s Office says the father is not at fault in the incident.
In South Dakota a man was killed early Friday when the pickup truck he was in slipped on an ice-covered road near Cavour. The two other people in the truck were not seriously injured in the incident.
The storm also led to the death of a person in Ontario, Canada when the wintry weather led to dangerous road conditions and a 30 car pile-up on a busy highway.
The National Weather Service forecasts New York will miss the brunt of the powerful nor’easter and will get 1 to 3 inches of snow through Monday night.
Inland areas appeared to be in for the worst of it, with the forecast in Albany, New York, predicting 6 to 14 inches.
Some New York schools announced closures Monday morning as Governor Andrew Cuomo advised nonessential state employees to stay home on Monday.
Boston and other coastal areas of Massachusetts will see as much as 6 inches of snow, and farther inland up to 11 inches, by Tuesday.
The Philadelphia area could get 5 inches, and a foot of snowfall anticipated in the southern Poconos and Northwest New Jersey.
Tractor-trailers were banned or lower speed limits put in place on stretches of interstate highways in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Some states already felt the impact of the storms with massive snowfall in northern California, Utah, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Five year old cousins Austin Rawlings (left) and Colby Rawlings (right), were found dead on Saturday in Arizona. The children had been reported missing when the ‘military style’ truck they were in with their family got swept into a creek in the Tonto Basin near Phoenix
First responders pulling the family vehicle out of the flooded creek after three children got stuck in the truck that was swept away in flooding on Tonto Creek at Tonto Basin, Arizona
Six-year-old Herman Slaughter (left) died in a freak accident on Friday. He was riding on a Kubota Skid Steer loader with his father Nathaniel at the Aspen Grove Family Camp in Provo Canyon when he fell off, hit his head on the plow’s bucket, and died from the critical injury. Crews are still searching for missing six-year-old girl Willa Rawlings, right, in Arizona after her brother and cousin were found dead
Winter Storm Ezekiel first entered the West Coast last Tuesday November 26 and hit southern Oregon and northwestern California as a bomb cyclone before moving to the Midwest and making it to the Northeast on Sunday December 1.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker urged drivers to use caution during the Tuesday morning commute when the storm was expected to be at its height with snow falling at 1 to 2 inches an hour in some places. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said city schools were canceling classes and afterschool activities Tuesday.
The storm dropped more than a foot of snow on parts of the region late Sunday and Monday and could bring 10 to 24 inches total by Tuesday from Pennsylvania to Maine, forecasters said. Heavy snow was also expected in the Appalachian Mountains down to Tennessee and North Carolina.
Forecasters predict accumulations near 30 inches by Tuesday morning in parts of Vermont´s Green Mountains.
The winter storm covered in Manhattan with hours of snowfall on Monday afternoon
New York City started to see snow Monday afternoon as pictured above in this Times Square photo. The city could see between one to four inches of snow through Tuesday
A pedestrian walks through deep snow after an overnight snowfall, Monday in Marlborough, Massachusetts