New York.- A powerful winter storm hits the northeastern United States on Monday and could be one of the biggest ever to hit New York, which decreed the state of emergency, suspended vaccinations against Covid-19 and expect about 50 centimeters of snow.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a storm watch for an area from Virginia to Maine, home to tens of millions of people, and forecast massive snowfall with winds of up to 80 km / h in New York, New Jersey and parts of Philadelphia and Connecticut.
The mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, decreed on Sunday night a state of emergency in the city of 8.6 million inhabitants, where the snow continues to fall without stopping in thick flakes and has already covered streets and avenues.
The New York government decreed the closure of schools Monday and Tuesday and restricted non-essential travel. This year, however, not as many people are affected as many students attend online classes and thousands of employees work from home in the wake of the pandemic.
The mayor also suspended Covid vaccination appointments on Monday and banned restaurants from serving customers at tables located outside on Monday.
“I asked people not to be on the street. It is dangerous. The most important task now is to protect people’s lives by facing the snow first. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we really want to go back to vaccination” against Covid, he said de Blasio on Monday to the MSNBC television channel.
“This storm is not a joke and the biggest concern now is that the rate of snowfall forecast this afternoon, 5 centimeters per hour, creates an extremely dangerous situation on our routes, “said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In the Top 10?
The snowfall, which started Sunday night, reached 13.5 centimeters in Central Park on Monday morning, and could reach up to 50 centimeters, according to the weather service.
“If we exceed 50 centimeters it will be one of the 10 biggest snow storms in New York City,” Matthew Wunsch, a NWS meteorologist in the city, told AFP.
“It will be a decent snowstorm for New York, one of the biggest we have seen in a while, at least in a couple of years,” added Wunsch, who indicated that it may continue to snow until Tuesday afternoon.
The three airports in New York and its metropolitan area canceled between 65% and 90% of their flights, according to the Flight Aware site. More than 1,500 flights were canceled across the country, mostly in Boston, New York, Washington DC and Philadelphia.
The Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, also declared a state of emergency, giving authorities the ability to close roads, evacuate homes, and obtain the necessary equipment for public safety.
He also ordered the suspension of public transportation throughout the state until Monday.
“Charge your devices and if you experience power outages, report them immediately,” he wrote on Twitter.
Washington DC under snow
The storm, which left nevades of up to 1.8 meters and heavy rains in mountainous areas of California last week, it moved toward the Midwest, hitting Chicago in particular, which recorded about 20 centimeters of snow.
Heavy snow has fallen since Sunday night in Washington DC and delighted the giant pandas at the National Zoo, who frolicked in the snow. The NWS predicts that snow cover can reach as high as 8 inches in the Maryland area of the federal capital and Baltimore.
Thousands of DC school students were due to return to school in person on Monday for the first time since March, but their return was postponed to Tuesday.
Due to the snow, US President Joe Biden postponed a planned visit to the State Department.
The city of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, also declared a state of emergency, decreed the closure of government buildings and asked its residents to remove their cars from certain streets to be able to sweep snow.
The storm is expected to hit Maine on Tuesday, where it can leave 8 to 13 inches of snow as well as hail.
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