US snow storm – as it happened: JFK and LaGuardia airports suspend flights amid 'bomb cyclone' chaos
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Your support makes all the difference.Heavy snow and high winds are beginning to pound the US East Coast along a front stretching from Maine in the north to North Carolina in the south, knocking out power, icing over roadways and closing hundreds of schools.
The storm moved governors of multiple states – including New York and New Jersey – to declare states of emergency, a step already taken by governors of southern states.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio also declared a “winter weather emergency,” imploring residents to “take this one very seriously”.
“Unless it is essential for you to be out on the roads, you should not be,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
The storm dumped snow on Florida’s capital Tallahassee for the first time in 30 years on Wednesday, and is expected to last throughout the day. New York’s John F Kennedy Airport and LaGuardia Airport closed down flights for a time during the afternoon.
It is being dubbed the “bomb cyclone”, and is the product of a rapid and rare drop in barometric pressure known as bombogenesis.
States of emergencies were in effect in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia and there were blizzard warnings from the Canadian border as far south as Virginia.
Much of the eastern United States is in the grip of a sustained cold spell that has frozen part of Niagara Falls, played havoc with public works and impeded firefighting in places where temperatures barely broke 20F ( -6C).
Areas around Boston were forecast to see about one foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday, and the National Weather Service predicted a similar amount and wind gusts of up to 55 mph (90 kmph) in New York City.
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Schools were ordered to close in both cities.
“This could bring some very dangerous conditions,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said late on Wednesday.
“Both rush hours will be affected,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh earlier told a news conference. “Be patient. With the amount of snow we’re getting here, we could be plowing your street and a half hour later it could look like we haven’t been there.”
The National Weather Service received multiple reports of coastal flooding in Massachusetts, including in Boston, Lynn and Cape Cod, that made roads impassable.
In Boston's Seaport district, Joe Weatherly, a 40-year-old artist from Los Angeles, said: "For someone in California, this is really, really scary. Mind blowing.
"We don't live in a state where things shut down with the weather. I've just never seen this much snow in my life."
The storm is bringing with it high winds.
The National Weather Service said it had received reports of a wind gust of 76 mph on Nantucket, Massachusetts, and a gust of 75 mph in Wellfleet, on Cape Cod. Winds of 74 mph or higher are considered hurricane force.
Block Island, Rhode Island experience a 61 mph wind gust.
It's so cold in Florida that iguanas are falling from their perches in suburban trees.
Temperatures dipped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) early on Thursday in parts of South Florida, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.
That's chilly enough to immobilize green iguanas common in Miami's suburbs.
Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino tweeted a photograph of an iguana lying belly-up next to his swimming pool. WPEC-TV posted images of an iguana on its back on a Palm Beach County road.
The cold-blooded creatures native to Central and South America start to get sluggish when temperatures fall below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), said Kristen Sommers, who oversees the nonnative fish and wildlife program for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
If temperatures drop below that, iguanas freeze up. "It's too cold for them to move," Ms Sommers said.
Authorities say a person is dead after the car they were traveling in couldn't stop at the bottom of a steep, snow-covered hill and slammed into a commuter train on its way to Philadelphia.
Police say the driver of the car was able to escape before the crash Thursday morning in Lower Moreland but the passenger stayed inside as the vehicle crashed through a gate at the railroad crossing. That person was later found by police along the tracks.
A spokeswoman for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority says none of the passengers on board the West Trenton line train were injured. The train was about 20 miles north of downtown Philadelphia.
Almost 80,000 homes and businesses in the Northeast and Southeast, where the storm struck on Wednesday, are said to be without power.
Meanwhile, nearly 5,000 flights have now been cancelled.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has said Boston could get 12 to 18 inches of snow before the storm moves out of Massachusetts.
“We are going to continue to monitor the forecast and deploy every resource necessary to make sure our neighborhoods are safe,” he said at a news conference
The storm is expected to taper off by 9pm ET (0200 GMT), but the freezing temperatures will linger through the weekend, he said.
Here is what the 'cyclone bomb' looked like from space earlier today.
Approximately 500 National Guard members have been activated along the East Coast to assist with the ongoing winter storm, according to the Department of Defense.
“The main focus is assisting with transportation support and vehicles. No federal assets have been requested at this point,” Defense spokesman Lt. Colonel Jamie Davis said in a statement.
The governor of Rhode Island has been urging residents of her state to stay off the roads, which were already closed to large tractor-trailer trucks.
Players for the New England Patriots (an American football team) are already accustomed to games in snow and sub-zero temperatures — an even greater possibility as they are bound for playoffs, which stretch through the winter months — and videos released by the team showed athletes undeterred by frigid conditions.
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