A powerful and historic winter storm has battered the northeastern United States, placing nearly 59 million people under severe weather alerts and triggering widespread travel disruptions, power outages, and states of emergency across multiple states. Officials warn the nor’easter could be the most intense to strike the region in almost a decade.
From Sunday evening into Monday, heavy snow and fierce winds swept across major population centers including New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, with snowfall rates reaching up to 2–3 inches per hour. Early reports from the US National Weather Service recorded accumulations of 10 inches in parts of Long Island and New Jersey before dawn Monday, with totals expected to reach 1–2 feet across much of the region.
About 40 million residents remain under blizzard warnings, while another 19 million face winter storm alerts stretching from North Carolina’s Appalachians to coastal Maine. Meteorologists say the storm’s scale and intensity are unusual for such a densely populated corridor. Coastal areas face wind gusts up to 70 mph, raising risks of fallen trees, structural damage, and widespread outages.
New York City issued its first blizzard warning in nine years and imposed a full travel ban from Sunday night through midday Monday. Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared a state of emergency, closing schools, shutting bridges and highways to non-emergency traffic, and suspending public events. Broadway performances and horse races at Aqueduct Racetrack were cancelled as the city braced for up to 28 inches of snow in some neighborhoods.
Across the wider northeast, more than 150,000 households lost power, including 60,000 in New Jersey alone. Air travel was heavily disrupted, with roughly 5,500 US flights cancelled on Sunday and hundreds more delayed as conditions deteriorated.
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Governors in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York activated emergency measures and National Guard support. The storm’s reach extends into Canada’s Atlantic provinces, where Nova Scotia’s eastern coast faces severe warnings for outages and debris through Tuesday.
Forecasters caution that travel may remain nearly impossible in many areas until the system moves offshore late Monday, leaving deep snowdrifts, coastal flooding, and a prolonged recovery across the northeast.
