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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Welcome to The Independent's live blog tracing the impacts of the so-called "bomb cyclone" hitting the US east coast.
Heavy snow and high winds are set to pound the US East Coast throughout Thursday 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 dumped snow on Florida's capital Tallahassee for the first time in 30 years on Wednesday, and is expected to last throughout today.
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.
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."
Private forecaster Accuweather said snow would fall quickly during the day, at a rate of several inches per hour, with the storm intensified by the bombogenesis effect.
US airlines have cancelled more than 3,000 flights in and out of the US today, according to the airline tracking website FlightAware.
Newark Liberty International, Boston Logan, and New York's LaGuardia and John F Kennedy account for nearly half of those flights.
Connecticut Governor Dannel P Malloy said more than 100 warming centres have been opened in 34 towns across the state. Connecticut has 634 state plow trucks and 250 contractors working to clear the state's highways.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has warned that the across the city will get worse throughout the day.
"The situation will deteriorate through the day," Mr Cuomo said. "Afternoon and evening rush hour we expect to be worse, especially on Long Island."
Long Island, in particular, is a major concern because of the expressway and coastal areas. Mr Cuomo warned that the "wind off the water creates mayhem."
"Unless it is essential for you to be out ... you should not be," he said.
There are said to have been 13 cold-related deaths across the country since the cold weather set in last week.
Govern Charlie Baker said during a morning briefing that emergency officials are prepared to open shelters in southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod, where heavy wet snow and howling wind gusts of 60 mph or higher pose the greatest threat of outages.
More than 45,000 people are said to be without power across the region:
Southeast Virginia and northern North Carolina: 45,747 customers without powers
Maryland and Delaware: 671 customers without power
New York City area: 1,175 customers without power
In total, more than 3,200 flights are said to be cancelled across the region.
Three people were killed as a result of weather-related accidents across the state of North Carolina, Keith Acree of the state's Department of Emergency Management has told CNN.
Mr Acree says the first incident occurred in Moore County last night. Two men traveling in a pick-up truck slid off the road into a creek and overturned.
A driver was also killed this morning after traveling off the road and into a ditch.
Those deaths bring the total number of cold weather-related deaths to 16 across the country.
The city has issued a precautionary boil water advisory for the entire drinking water system, with people experiencing lower than normal water pressure.
The airport, which suspended operations shortly before 11am local time (1600 GMT), was expected to reopen at 3pm (2000 GMT), FAA officials said.
An ocean tide surging into Boston, Massachusetts, is on track to becoming the highest ever recorded since 1921, according to the National Weather Service.
The tide is currently at 4.718 feet, which makes it the second highest tide recorded.
The record is 4.82 feet. It was set in 1978, when there was also a blizzard.
Commuters who braved the storm in the morning worried that they could be stranded during the storm's peak expected later in the day.
"I don't know where I'll stay tonight if I get stuck, probably with my boss," Ran Richardson, 55, of Malden, Massachusetts told Reuters, as he waited for a Boston subway to take him to training for his job as a Chinese-English translator.
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.”
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