Nor'easter buries New York, New Jersey & New England

Heavy snow piles up in Morristown, New Jersey Wednesday night. The second storm in less than a week, dumped over 60cm (2 feet) of heavy wet snow on the region. The system has largely avoided southwestern Quebec so far, with only a few centimetres falling. (Photo: The Weather Channel)

The second nor'easter in less than a week buried portions of the east coast on Wednesday. Heavy wet snow fell from Pennsylvania across New Jersey and New York and into New England. The hardest hit regions were from southern Vermont across the lower Hudson Valley into central New Jersey, where as much as 70cm of snow fell. In some locations, the snow was falling at more than 10cm (4 inches) per hour late Wednesday. Thunder, lightning and strong winds accompanied the snow. As of Thursday morning, nearly 750,000 homes and businesses were without power in New England and the Northeast. Air and rail service have been greatly impacted from Washington to Boston. Several highways are closed due to multiple accidents, downed trees and power lines and deep snow.

The storm responsible for all the weather is now moving into Maine, likely to deliver 10 to 30cm of snow to portions of New Brunswick and eastern Quebec. A last minute wobble of 30 to 50 miles to the east, managed to spare Montreal any real impacts from the system so far. As of 7am this morning, I had measured 2 to 3cm of snow on L'Ile Perrot. As the storm moves into New Brunswick, it is expected to weaken today and retrograde westward towards Montreal by late Friday. What this means locally, is intermittent light snow throughout Thursday and Friday, perhaps persisting into Saturday. Accumulations may reach 10cm in many regions of southern Quebec, including metro Montreal, but falling over a 36 hour period, I am not expecting any major impacts. Winds will be gusty in Montreal on Thursday, out of the northeast 30-50km/h. Expect temperatures to remain either side of 0C (-2C to +1C) over the next 36 hours.