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Heavy snow sweeps across Canada and the U.S. by Sean Batty

Sweethearts had to snuggle together as a monster snowstorm hit the Midwest and Northeast U.S. along with southern Canada on Valentine’s Day. The storm left huge piles of snow causing hundreds of road accidents and has been blamed for 15 deaths.

A massive 50 mile car jam formed on a road in Pennsylvania on Wednesday night. The National Guard flew in to help deliver supplies to people stranded in their cars.

Meanwhile over 95,000 homes and businesses were without power until early on Thursday in Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia after ice brought down the power lines.

The storm hit on Wednesday and local press reports up to 12 inches of snow across Pennsylvania, 15 inches in Cleveland, 19 inches in western Massachusetts and an incredible 42 inches in southern Adirondacks in New York. Three feet of snow fell in Vermont which was great news for the ski resorts, which have had a slow start to the winter.

In some parts of the northeast U.S. the snow quickly turned to ice turning towns into massive skating rinks and entombed vehicles. A strong wind was also blowing yesterday, which brought a severe wind-chill. New York City had a temperature reach of around freezing on Thursday, but once you added the wind on it felt more like -20C.

The storm forced airports to close and cancelled hundreds of flights from New York City’s three main airports along with flights to and from Portland, Boston, Maine and Washington.

At Burlington International Airport in Vermont 25.7 inches of snow fell. This made it the second highest total to fall from one storm.

The storm moved into Canada late on Wednesday bringing up to 50cm of snow to some regions west of Toronto.

On Thursday morning residents in Hamilton woke up to find 40cm of snow, but Environment Canada (the Canadian weather office) have said some areas may have received up to 70cm. They added that drifts could reach up to a metre in some parts.

Environment Canada is still compiling the data, but the snowfall could end up being a record for Hamilton. The previous 24 hour snowfall record was 43.2cm set back in January 22nd 1966.

Temperatures are going to stay below zero for most of the areas affected until next week, when it may turn a little milder. Before then ice is likely to cause further problems.

Source: BBC