Winter in noord Amerika 2011/2012

quote:

8 dead after freak winterstorm
More than 3.2m homes and businesses across the north-east US have been left without power after a freak snowstorm killed at least eight people and disrupted transport across the region.

From Maryland to Maine, officials said it would take days to restore electricity, even though the snow ended Sunday.

The storm smashed record snowfall totals for October and worsened as it moved north. Communities in western Massachusetts were among the hardest hit. Snowfall totals topped 68.6cm (27in) in Plainfield, and 66cm nearby Windsor.

The storm was blamed for at least six deaths, and states of emergency were declared in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.

Roads and railways were blocked and flights cancelled, with passengers on a JetBlue flight stuck on a plane in Hartford, Connecticut, for more than seven hours on Saturday.

More than 800,000 customers were without electricity in Connecticut alone – shattering the record set in August by Hurricane Irene. Massachusetts and New Jersey each suffered more than 600,000 power cuts. Parts of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland and Vermont also were without power.

"It's going to be a more difficult situation than we experienced in Irene," Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said. "We are expecting extensive and long-term power outages."

Thirty-two shelters were open around the state, and Malloy asked volunteer fire departments to allow people in for warmth and showers. At least four hospitals were relying on generators for power.

Around Newtown in western Connecticut, trees were so laden with snow on some back roads that the branches touched the street. Every few minutes, a snap filled the air as one broke and tumbled down. Roads that were plowed became impassible because the trees were falling so fast.

The National Weather Service said the snowstorm "absolutely crushed previous records that in some cases dated back more than 100 years". Saturday was only the fourth snowy October day in New York's Central Park since record-keeping began 135 years ago.

There usually is not enough cold air in the region to support a snowstorm this time of year, but an area of high pressure over south-eastern Canada funneled cold air south into the US, the service said. That cold air combined with moisture coming from the North Carolina coast to produce the unseasonable weather.

The JetBlue passengers stranded at Hartford's Bradley International Airport were on a flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Newark, New Jersey, that had been diverted. Passenger Andrew Carter, a football reporter for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, said the plane ran out of snacks and bottled water, and the toilets backed up.

JetBlue said power outages at the airport has made it difficult to get passengers off the plane, and added that the passengers would be reimbursed.

There were other flight delays in the region over the weekend, and commuter trains in Connecticut and New York were delayed or suspended because of downed trees and signal problems. Amtrak suspended passenger train service on several north-eastern routes, and one train from Chicago to Boston got stuck overnight in Palmer, Massachusetts. The 48 passengers had food and heat, a spokeswoman said, and they were taken by bus Sunday to their destinations.

In south-eastern Pennsylvania, an 84-year-old man was killed when a snow-laden tree fell on his home. In Connecticut, the governor said one person died in a traffic accident that he blamed on slippery conditions.

A 20-year-old man in Springfield, Massachusetts, stopped when he saw police and firefighters examining downed wires and stepped in the wrong place and was electrocuted.

The snow was a bone-chilling slush in New York City, and was a taste of what's to come for demonstrators camping out at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for the Occupy Wall Street protest.

Nick Lemmin, of Brooklyn, spent his first night at Zuccotti in a sleeping bag in a tent, wearing thermals, a sweatshirt and a scarf.

"I slept actually pretty well," he said. "It was pretty quiet."

quote:

Northeast Snow From Space

The white colored areas highlighted by the yellow oval on the image below is snow cover over the Northeast as viewed from space. The white shaded areas on the upper right and lower left of this image are clouds. This image was taken on Sunday after the historic storm departed.

quote:

Nog altijd geen stroom in delen VS

WAYLAND - Honderdduizenden mensen in het noordoosten van de Verenigde Staten hebben al dagen geen elektriciteit vanwege de ongebruikelijk vroege en zware sneeuwstorm die het afgelopen weekeinde over het gebied trok.

Er zijn inmiddels minstens 21 mensen door toedoen van het winterse weer om het leven gekomen. De meeste slachtoffers vielen door omvallende bomen, bij verkeersongelukken of werden geėlektrocuteerd door kapotte elektriciteitskabels.

Op het hoogtepunt van de storm zaten zeker 3,1 miljoen huishoudens zonder stroom. Maandagavond waren dat nog 2,2 miljoen. De gouverneur van de staat New Jersey zei dat donderdag de elektriciteitsvoorziening weer hersteld zal zijn voor 95 procent van de 375 duizend huishoudens die in New Jersey nu nog zonder stroom zitten.

Zware sneeuw

De combinatie van zware, natte sneeuw, bomen met nog veel bladeren en een harde wind zorgde ervoor dat op veel plaatsen takken en elektriciteitskabels naar beneden kwamen en bomen omwaaiden. Op sommige plekken viel in het weekeinde een kleine zeventig centimeter sneeuw. In het plaatsje Peru, in de staat Massachusetts, viel 81 centimeter sneeuw. Honderden scholen bleven maandag dicht.

Voor veel steden is de sneeuwstorm een harde financiėle klap na de schade die veel steden opliepen door de orkaan Irene

quote:

The following photos were taken by AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Heather Buchman in the Denver Tech Center area, just south of the city, during the Nov. 1-2, 2011 snowstorm.

This snowstorm comes exactly one week after Denver's first significant snow of the season.

quote:

Op maandag 31 oktober 2011 22:40 schreef aloa het volgende:
Nog bijna 2 miljoen zonder stroom in VS

In vijf staten in het noordoosten van de Verenigde Staten zaten maandag nog steeds 1,8 miljoen mensen zonder stroom. De uitval werd veroorzaakt door een hevige sneeuwstorm. Dat meldde nieuwszender CNN. Het kan tot vrijdag duren voordat de elektriciteit overal weer is hersteld.

Door de zeldzaam vroege sneeuwval zijn in totaal 12 doden gevallen. Het spoor- en vliegverkeer is inmiddels weer op gang gekomen. Maar voor benzinestations staan lange rijen omdat door de stroomuitval veel pompen dicht zijn. In veel plaatsen is het jaarlijkse Halloweenfeest afgelast of uitgesteld.

bron